ABOUT 90 jobs will be lost in Morrisons’ home town of Bradford after the supermarket group decided to shut its Westgate store.
The retailer announced on Tuesday that seven stores would close and has now confirmed that the city centre store would be among those to be shut, with the loss of 90 jobs. The other locations have not been confirmed, but are understood not to be in Yorkshire.
In a statement, Morrisons said: “Regrettably we cannot see any improvement in the viability of the Westgate store.
“Many people will know that we have considered closing the store before and have instead decided to carry on trading, which is in part down to the hard work of our colleagues.
“Despite their dedication we have not seen the response from customers needed to secure the store’s future.”
Earlier this week, Morrisons revealed like-for-like sales were up 0.2% for the nine weeks to January 3, putting the brakes on falling sales, which had ranged from -2.4% to -2.9% in the previous four quarters.
Morrisons chief executive David Potts said he was “pleased with our improved trading performance over the Christmas period”.
It is forecasting full-year underlying pre-tax profits to be in the range of £295m-£310m, before the exceptional £60m costs from restructuring and store closures.
