The BBC has announced that it will go ahead with the planned redundancies despite a unanimous union decision to ballot for strike action if the network made the intended job cuts.

The BBC said it will write to staff in November asking them to volunteer for redundancy. The corporation has said that they are trying to avoid any delay in actions as it would cause unecessary stress and has said the letters will go out on the 5th of next month.

Although most programs went ahead as normal the last time the BBC staff went on strike two years ago, press speculation says that the strike would affect shows like Strictly Come Dancing, Match of the Day and news bulletins.

The three broadcasting unions addressed their concerns over the redundancy issues in a letter to the BBC yesterday and were told that while the network intended to restrict external recruitment as much as possible, they couldn’t “guarantee an absolute freeze” as they were unsure that people could be retrained quickly enough.

The Beeb also said it would only spend money on redundancy where it was absolutely necessary.