A MEETING has been held in the fight to try and keep hundreds of tax office jobs in Wrexham.

Anneliese Dodds MP, a member of Labour’s frontbench ministerial team visited Wrexham yesterday to discuss the future of hundreds of tax office jobs and town MP Ian Lucas's campaign to stop the roles from being moved away from the town.

Staff at Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs' (HMRC) Wrexham Technology Park site – which is home to a workforce of about 300 – face being relocated to either Liverpool or Cardiff as the Government plans to close the town’s office by 2021.

Mr Lucas has been fighting to keep the jobs in Wrexham and he welcomed the shadow treasury minister Anneliese Dodds MP for a meeting with HMRC employees represented by the PCS union.

Ms Dodds is conducting a review of the impact of HMRC cuts and office closures for the shadow treasury team. The meeting in Wrexham was one of a series across the UK discuss the issue with affected staff and look at how Labour would reverse the policy to benefit our towns.

Speaking to the Leader, Ms Dodds said: "We've come here to see a lot of people who are being forced to travel miles and miles from their home.

"We're already seeing people from Wrexham forced to work in Liverpool which is a long commute and you can't really do it by public transport.

"It's not really just about them and the local jobs being lost in Wrexham but the impact on HMRC that we're worried about.

"A lot of people with expertise have just gone, and left those jobs."

The UK’s tax authority announced in 2015 that it intended to close 137 local offices and replace them with 13 regional centres. Staff in the Wrexham office have been told they can move to the regional centres in either Liverpool or Cardiff with no North Wales presence for HMRC.

Wrexham MP Ian Lucas told the Leader: "I'm really concerned about the loss of high quality longstanding jobs at the tax office, 380 of them.

"They are being transported out of Wales to Liverpool, or alternatively to Cardiff city centre. It's a crazy decision and we're here today to continue to fight against it."