Vauxhall has announced plans to cut 241 jobs at its Ellesmere Port manufacturing plant.

The jobs will be cut by the end of 2019 and will carry out redundancies on a voluntary basis.

The Peugeot-owned car manufacturer has said that the latest round of job cuts are “necessary”.

The latest round of cuts is “critical to ensure that the Ellesmere Port plant develops its competitiveness during this difficult time within the industry,” said the group.

“The restructuring is necessary to make it a competitive plant when compared to the benchmark,” the group added.

This is not the first time that jobs have been slashed at the Ellesmere Port plant.

October last year saw 400 jobs cut, whilst more recently in January another 250 jobs were cut.

In a statement, Vauxhall said the group’s 2019 plan includes “site compression, implementation of new technologies and other transformation activities which will impact on headcount requirements.”

The regional coordinating officer at Unite, Mick Chalmers, said: “Vauxhall’s Ellesmere Port workers have made huge sacrifices and worked hard to ensure the carmaker recently returned to profit for the first time in two decades.”

“Further job losses will come as a sickening blow for them and their families in the run-up to Christmas and will further heighten the anger over the uncertainty surrounding the future of the plant.”

“PSA should be clear. Unite will not tolerate the death by a thousand cuts of Ellesmere Port and will leave no stone unturned in securing the future of the plant and its skilled workforce,” he added.

Vauxhall has said that it is also considering stockpiling parts to avoid shortages amid the Brexit uncertainty.

“We do not want to comment at this stage on the Brexit process and its assessment by Groupe PSA, as it is not the final step for implementation,” Vauxhall said in a statement.

“We are working in an agile mode, as usual, and we have several solutions to address different scenarios.”

Shares in Peugeot are trading +1.50% at 19,59 (0846GMT).