STAFF at the Marconi factory in Chorley have been given a New Year boost with a world-beating £100million contract to manufacture revolutionary new public telephone boxes. But there's a sting in the tail.

Despite the bumper eight-year deal with BT, bosses at the troubled company say they cannot guarantee that jobs will be safe.

Marconi has signed a partnership with BT to supply 28,000 new public pay phones throughout the UK which will offer internet, e-mail and messaging services as well as traditional phone calls.

The contract is a welcome boost for the group after a year when thousands of employees were made redundant in the wake of a collapse in its share price.

The Chorley plant, which suffered two rounds of job cuts last year, is better known under its previous name, GPT Payphones.

The new generation of web phones were designed and developed at Chorley, where production will be concentrated.

Management, however, say they cannot guarantee that the 250 jobs at the Carr Lane site will be secure in the long term.

Liam Brown, managing director, said: "I think it is good news for Chorley and good news for the local area to make a product that will be in all parts of the country within the next five years.

"But in this market place you can never make assumptions because it is so volatile and we need to protect shareholder value."

The contract is the largest roll-out of new generation web phones in the world and the first to have a nationwide dimension.

"Our customers' requirements have evolved considerably over the past few years and we have designed these new multi-media web phones to meet their expectations," said Mr Brown.

"Marconi's web phones not only provide easy access to the latest interactive communications services, but their robust design means that they can also be installed in any location."

Mr Brown said it was impossible to say how the pay phone market would perform in the future and what that would mean for future jobs in Chorley.

He said: "The world-wide global penetration of mobile phones has had a great impact, but we will be making a very competitive product here and will continue to closely watch the market place".