The North West social housing provider, which owns 6,000 properties, needs to close a £30 million gap in its finances over the next three years.

The 64 jobs at risk are in supervisor, operative and administration roles within the repairs and maintenance team based in Carlisle.

Dean Butterworth, Riverside’s regional director, said: “Our repairs service will still be based here but the reality is, in these challenging times, we need to be able to do more with less.

“All housing providers are facing tough decisions but we are committed to ensuring our customers’ needs are met, even if that means changing the way we deliver certain services.”

Mr Butterworth said the repairs and maintenance team had been informed of the plans in consultation with unions GMB, Unite and Unison and local stakeholders.

Butterworth added: “We recognise that this is an unsettling time for our colleagues and will be working closely with the union and all at risk, in order to minimise the number of redundancies we actually need to make.”

A consultation period of up to 45 days has now started. The implementation of the redundancies will be completed by the end of this year.

This is the second set of redundancies Riverside has announced in six months. A total of 15 full time positions went earlier this year when Riverside closed its Careline service, which was taken on by Eden Housing Association’s Eden Independent Living.

Riverside said the latest redundancies were part of a national programme to create a leaner and more efficient business model that eliminated waste and duplication, reduced office costs and increased productivity and financial resilience.

Irvine Housing Association became a subsidiary of The Riverside Group in October 2011.