Hundreds of jobs under threat at Northampton-based Opus Energy

An energy company is planning to make up to 340 posts redundant after selling thousands of business customers to another firm.

Opus Energy, which has its headquarters in Northampton, has sold 90,000 “meter points” to EDF Energy.

The Drax Group, which owns Opus, said its smaller business customers were “no long aligned with our strategy”.

Drax said it had put additional support and advice in place for the workers who would be affected by the changes.

Opus Energy was bought by Drax, owner of the UK’s biggest renewable power plant, in 2017.

Drax said it had carried out a long-term strategic review of its business customers and had made the “difficult decision” of no longer wanting to have small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs) on its books.

It confirmed that it had started a consultation process affecting around 340 roles at the Opus building in The Lakes, Northampton.

A further 90 members of the Opus team will be retained to manage the remaining SME accounts.

One employee who wanted to remain anonymous told the BBC: “Most of us have been here a long time and the redundancy package in this climate is really not adequate.

“Drax and EDF both don’t seem to care and have not considered any of our requests for more money so far.

“A lot of us have families and financial commitments. With the cost of living so high and rent and mortgage prices, I just don’t know what we are going to do if we can’t find work quickly.”

Drax said the package being offered to workers “incorporates a series of proposed enhanced redundancy terms, contingent on individual eligibility, which go beyond Drax’s statutory responsibilities”.