Thousands of Royal Mail jobs have gone since 2001

The Sunday Telegraph said details of the proposals were outlined in a "strategic plan" submitted to industry regulator Postcomm.

A review of the report by consultancy LECG, commissioned by Postcomm, said Royal Mail planned to axe 30,000 staff.

Royal Mail denied the claims, dubbing LECG's report "speculative" and "full of assumptions and projections".

Postcomm said the report was part of Royal Mail's response to the current price and strategy review going on in the industry.

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"In that plan they mentioned the prospective figure of 30,000 job losses, but these were not necessarily cuts - it could be people leaving or retiring," the spokesperson said.

The 660-page report by LECG states: "Royal Mail... aims to reduce frontline FTEs (full time employees) by over 30,000 by 2010/11."

'Speculative report'

However, a spokesman for Royal Mail denied the group would be cutting thousands of workers.

"This is a speculative report based on the work of a consultancy firm, it's full of assumptions and projections the Royal Mail does not agree with," he told the BBC.

"Royal Mail is not making any predictions."

He added that the Royal Mail had said it needed an investment of �2bn in order to compete effectively when the market opens to full competition in five months time.

According to the Sunday Telegraph, Royal Mail chief Allan Leighton has tried to reassure employees that there would be "no compulsory redundancies" since the LECG report was published by Postcomm.

Royal Mail has been involved in a war of the words with Postcomm recently over plans to cap the price of stamps.

Investment drought

Last month Mr Leighton warned that Postcomm's plans to cap prices would "literally starve Royal Mail of vital investment".

Under its latest plans for the Royal Mail, the regulator wants a guarantee that first-class stamps will rise to no more than 34 pence by 2010.

Royal Mail had argued that the ideal price would be 48p as many of its mail services are actually loss making - the current price of a first-class stamp is 30p.

The company has said that, unless the proposals are "substantially" changed, it will make a complaint to the Competition Commission.

The reports will come as a blow to postal staff who have seen Royal Mail's workforce cut to 165,000 from 218,000 since 2001 in an effort to improve profits and productivity.

Tough cost-cutting measures, including large-scale job losses and a programme of post office closures, helped the group move into profit last year for the first time in several years .