Around 160 defence jobs based at Yeovilton are to be moved to Bristol, the MoD has confirmed.

Workers at the Defence Equipment and Supply (DE&S) offices next to the Naval Air Station will move to Abbey Wood in February as part of a £560 million savings programme.

The MoD said the Chinook Helicopter Implementation Project Team (IPT) and two other helicopter project teams will move.

Around 400 DE&S workers will remain on site.

The move has been heavily criticised, mainly because of increased travel costs, especially among civilian contractor staff.

Objections have been registered on an HM Treasury website. Among the concerns were fears that the move would take DE&S staff further away from Somerset's aerospace industry, as well as the military bases they work with.

Staff who live locally and do not choose to move closer to Bristol could face a journey of up to two hours to the new offices, it is claimed.

An MoD spokesman said the relocation of the Chinook Project Team was part of the DE&S co-location project to Abbey Wood, which is expected to deliver £560m of savings over 25 years. He added that it reflected "the MoD's commitment to maximising funds available to the front line".

Ilchester District Councillor Tony Capozzoli said: "I'm totally against job losses. It makes sense to bring people back into head office but not if it means redundancies. The local economy's going to suffer. There won't be so many people spending money in the local area."