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The company's only other glass bottling dairy, Aintree in Liverpool, and another dairy Fenstanton, Cambridgeshire, are to be shut as demand for bottled milk plummets

Dairy Crest spokesman Arthur Reeves said: "It is mainly because of geography. We have two sites that bottle milk in glass bottles and fewer people are taking milk in glass bottles now. It was a difficult choice between the two but Hanworth is closer to more of our customers, we have more customers in the South, in the South-East in particular."

He admitted that there will be increased production at the Feltham site to take up the slack but said that no new staff will be hired.

The news comes after a tough week in which Dairy Crest announced that it had lost a deal to provide milk to Tesco. Dairy Crest denied that the announcement was to blame for the dairy closures and their cheese and butter ranges will still be stocked at the store.

The company has called this a 'challenging market' for milk as fewer people are having milk delivered.

Mr Reeves said: "We are doing all we can to encourage more people to have a milkman with schemes like milk

and more but numbers are falling."

Hanworth is now one of only a handful of glass bottling dairies in the country.

A spokesman for the dairy declined to comment.