The £461 million takeover of McAlpine's housing arm by Wimpey will result in the loss of another 450 jobs in the housebuilding industry. This brings the total jobs lost this year, following various industry mergers, to around 2000. <p></p><p>Wimpey is to close McAlpine's head office and six regional offices and the brand name will be phased out as current sites are completed. Wimpey managing director Keith Cushen has written to all McAlpine Homes staff explaining the plans. </p><p>Wimpey chief executive Peter Johnson told <i>HouseBuilder</i> that he is keen to handle the redundancies in the correct manner. </p><p>&amp;"We are setting up a dialogue with the people to try to give them confidence that we are going to go about this in the right way,&amp;" he said. ÒI see it as having picked up three hands of cards - McAlpine, Wimpey, McLean - and I don't want to get rid of all the cards in any of the hands. Quality people are valuable to us. This deal gives us land, product and people and I want to keep the best of each of those.&amp;" </p><p>Johnson scotched suggestions that the deal was designed to reassert Wimpey's position as the UK's biggest housebuilder following …