Two of Britain�s biggest housebuilders, Bovis Homes and Redrow, said yesterday they were cutting 40% of their respective workforces.

Two of Britain's biggest housebuilders, Bovis Homes and Redrow, said yesterday they were cutting 40% of their workforces - 750 jobs in total - to cope with the deepening depression in the housing market, and Inverness-based Tulloch Homes announced plans to eliminate 40 jobs across its Scottish operations.

Tulloch has already paid off 18 staff this year to cut costs and said the latest job losses were due to the downturn in the housing market.

It is expected that 29 of the 40 posts will be shed in the Highlands, among salaried and weekly paid staff. Persimmon announced on Tuesday that it planned to cut 85 jobs in Scotland and other builders have eliminated more than 100 staff jobs north of the border.

In April, the Bank of Scotland acquired a 40% stake in Tulloch in a deal worth £27.5m. The bank's corporate joint ventures business made the investment amid forecasts that the Scottish housing market would outperform the UK national average. Since then, the Scottish market has shown signs of weakness with builders reporting that they cannot sell completed houses in some areas because potential buyers are unable to secure mortgages from lenders.

In the past two weeks builders have announced more than 3000 redundancies across Britain, but industry analysts said the true figure is thought to be even higher as this does not include many casual workers on building sites, including those in Scotland.

The downturn has gathered pace and now feels "an awful lot worse" than the last major correction in the early 1990s, David Ritchie, chief executive of Kent-based Bovis Homes Group, said yesterday. The comment came just before the Bank of England's interest rate-setting panel began its monthly meeting.

But there was some better news from Bovis, which is based at Longfield, Kent. The group said it did not as yet expect any big writedowns of the value of its land holdings, although it will reduce its dividend and cut 400 jobs at a cost of £2m.

Housebuilders' share prices have collapsed this year, partly on fears of big writedowns on land bought at the peak of the housing market. The mood worsened on June 30 when indebted Taylor Wimpey announced a £660m writedown.

Bovis shares, which peaked at 1220p in April 2007, gained 5.5p to 323p by the close of dealing in London.

Redrow, which is cutting 350 job at a cost of £3m, said it would significantly reduce the value of its land holdings and was reviewing its dividend policy.

Bovis said it had no activities in Scotland and Redrow was unable to provide figures for Scottish job losses but said the bulk of the cuts would be in England.

Redrow shares, which had underperformed other housebuilders by 30% during the past fortnight, ended the session 3.75p stronger at 100p. The stock peaked at 737p in January 2007.

A 10-year boom in Britain's housing market began slowing last summer before the global credit squeeze choked off the supply of cheap and easy money that had helped triple prices in a decade.

Prices have fallen for several months as competition in the mortgage market all but disappeared and availability dried up.

Redrow chief executive Neil Fitzsimmons said consumers' lack of confidence was now having a bigger impact on sales than their difficulties getting a mortgage, adding reservations in the six months to end-June were down 55%.

Fitzsimmons said that until Easter the lack of mortgages was the main factor hitting sales but since then the biggest issue was concern about the economy turning into people's fears for their jobs.

Redrow, which is headquartered in Ewloe, Flintshire, sold 3925 homes in the year to end-June, down 19% on 2006-07. The average selling price fell 2% to £157,000. Bovis's sales fell by a third to 851 houses at an average price down 4% to £196,500.

House price growth had been driven by demand - the number of English households is estimated to outgrow housing stock by 38,000 every year due to immigration and more people living alone. Analysts see this cushioning the fall in the longer term.

Landsbanki analyst Simon Brown said: "The current position is out of the control of Redrow and its peers and shows no sign of abatement.

"It will be interesting to see what Barratt have to say "

Barratt will provide the City with an update early today.