Bosses at Stamford Homes, which employs 117 staff at its headquarters in Bakewell Road, Orton Southgate, Peterborough, has begun a 30-day consultation to identify redundancies.

It is believed as many as 43 jobs could be lost from the company, which also has an office in Grimsby, although a spokesman refused to confirm how many cuts were being planned.

Ian Baker, managing director of parent company Galliford Try Homes, blamed the decision on worsening conditions in the market.

He said: "The housing market is going through extremely challenging times and Galliford Try is having to take a number of measures to align its housebuilding business to reflect the reduced level of demand for its homes.

"We are very disappointed that this will result in some redundancies throughout our housebuilding division.

"Galliford Try is confident that in the longer term the demand for homes will return, and the underlying strengths of the company will allow it to resume its growth."

Stamford Homes, which is one of five regional brands of Galliford Try, was founded in Stamford 55 years ago and the company is working on housing developments in Nassington, Helpston and Bourne.

The company scooped best county development at the Daily Mail UK Property Awards in both 2005 and 2006.

Galliford Try is one of the top 10 publicly-quoted housebuilders in the Britain, although its stock market value has dropped over the last 18 months.

Despite peaking at more than 180p in February 2007, its share price had fallen to just 37p at close of business yesterday.