Map reveals where 16 Morrisons stores will shut TODAY as part of major shake-up – is your local affected?
A MAP has revealed where 16 Morrisons stores are set to close today as part of a country-wide reshuffle.
The beloved budget supermarket will be scrapping 16 Morrisons Daily convenience stores in a cost-cutting shake-up.
Morrisons announced the devastating closures last month and said they are “not taking the decision lightly” .
The supermarket giant said in a statement: “Morrisons has made the difficult decision to close some Morrisons Daily stores…
“We fully recognise the inconvenience this will cause for our customers and apologise for the short notification.”
The closures are part of cost-cutting and restructuring plans that also include shutting down dozens of in-store services such as cafes, florists, Market Kitchens, and meat and fish counters.
Here is the full list of Morrisons Daily stores closing today:
- Lowestoft Road, Gorleston
- 3-5 Old Town, Peebles
- 214 Hutton Road, Shenfield
- Waterloo Estate, Poole
- Higham Lane Estate, Tonbridge
- The Cornmarket, Romsey
- Lainshaw Street, Stewarton
- Featherbed Lane, Selsdon
- Queslett Road, Great Barr
- Oakfield Road, Whickham
- Queensway, Worle
- Strand Parade, Goring-By-Sea
- Westfield Road, Woking
- 40 Peach Street, Wokingham
- 51 Sidwell Street, Exeter
- Moorland Road, Bath
An additional convenience store on The Village, Haxby is set to close on May 14.
Some of the stores set to close house Post Offices – sparking fury among locals who will now have to travel further for postal services.
But Morrisons said: “We have reviewed Post Office provision in these areas and for most of these affected branches we are advertising the vacancies.”
This comes after the supermarket chain axed 11 Post Offices earlier this month.
Here’s a list of the Post Offices which have already closed:
- Pheasey Post Office, Birmingham – April 9
- Fellside Post Office, Whickham – April 9
- Waterloo Estate Post Office, Poole – April 10
- Shenfield Broadway Post Office, Brentwood – April 13
- Moorfields Post Office, Bath – April 13
- Stewarton Post Office, Kilmarnock – April 13
- Queensway Post Office, Weston-Super-Mare – April 13
- Sidwell Street Post Office, Exeter – April 14
- Higham Wood Post Office, Tonbridge – April 14
- Haxby Post Office, York – April 14
- Crossways Post Office, Croydon – April 15
MAJOR SHAKE-UP FOR MORRISONS
The closures come as part of a wider shake-up across Morrisons stores nationwide.
In an announcement last month, the retailer confirmed it would be shutting down 18 of its Market Kitchens, along with 13 florist stations, 35 meat counters, 35 fish counters, and four pharmacy units.
And 365 employees now face potential redundancy as a result of the changes.
The decision to scale back its cafe operations is expected to hit hard for budget-conscious families as Morrisons cafes have offered £5 meal deals for pensioners and provided free fruit and breakfast cereal for children during school holidays.
But Chief executive Rami Baitiéh insisted that the closures would “reinvigorate” the company and allow money to be invested in other areas.
He added: “In most locations the Morrisons Café has a bright future, but a minority have specific local challenges and in those locations, regrettably, closure and re-allocation of the space is the only sensible option.”
RETAIL STRUGGLES
The big shake-up comes just months after Baitiéh slammed the upcoming hikes to employer National Insurance Contributions (NICs) and national minimum wage.
Baitiéh took over as chief executive of the supermarket in November 2023 with the hope of salvaging Morrison’s declining sales.
Beginning this month businesses will pay a higher rate of NICs of 15 per cent, from 13.8 per cent.
It is believed the cost from National Insurance changes alone will hit Morrisons by around £75million.
Baitieh previously told The Sun he had urged Labour to consider the combined wall of costs retailers face.
He said: “The National Insurance change adds insult to injury. The problem is that it’s an avalanche of costs that is coming all at once.
“So I have asked them, can we not defer some of it or go step by step, like a doctor would do — raising the dose with seven pills over seven days.”
Plenty of other retailers are closing stores across the high street as households lean more towards online shopping and amid high business rates.
Soaring inflation in recent years has also dented shoppers’ pockets.
The Centre for Retail Research’s latest analysis suggests 13,479 stores, the equivalent of 37 each day, shut for good in 2024.
Of those, 11,341 were independent shops while 2,138 were shut by larger retailers.
The data also showed over half the stores that closed last year were shut due to the store or retailer going through debt.
Why are retailers closing stores?
RETAILERS have been feeling the squeeze since the pandemic, while shoppers are cutting back on spending due to the soaring cost of living crisis.
High energy costs and a move to shopping online after the pandemic are also taking a toll, and many high street shops have struggled to keep going.
However, additional costs have added further pain to an already struggling sector.
The British Retail Consortium has predicted that the Treasury’s hike to employer NICs from April will cost the retail sector £2.3billion.
At the same time, the minimum wage will rise to £12.21 an hour from April, and the minimum wage for people aged 18-20 will rise to £10 an hour, an increase of £1.40.
The Centre for Retail Research (CRR) has also warned that around 17,350 retail sites are expected to shut down this year.
It comes on the back of a tough 2024 when 13,000 shops closed their doors for good, already a 28% increase on the previous year.
Professor Joshua Bamfield, director of the CRR said: “The results for 2024 show that although the outcomes for store closures overall were not as poor as in either 2020 or 2022, they are still disconcerting, with worse set to come in 2025.”
It comes after almost 170,000 retail workers lost their jobs in 2024.
End-of-year figures compiled by the Centre for Retail Research showed the number of job losses spiked amid the collapse of major chains such as Homebase and Ted Baker.
It said its latest analysis showed that a total of 169,395 retail jobs were lost in the 2024 calendar year to date.
This was up 49,990 – an increase of 41.9% – compared with 2023.
It is the highest annual reading since more than 200,000 jobs were lost in 2020 in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced retailers to shut their stores during lock downs.
The centre said 38 major retailers went into administration in 2024, including household names such as Lloyds Pharmacy, Homebase, The Body Shop, Carpetright and Ted Baker.
Around a third of all retail job losses in 2024, 33% or 55,914 in total, resulted from administrations.
Experts have said small high street shops could face a particularly challenging 2025 because of Budget tax and wage changes.
Professor Bamfield has warned of a bleak outlook for 2025, predicting that as many as 202,000 jobs could be lost in the sector.
“By increasing both the costs of running stores and the costs on each consumer’s household it is highly likely that we will see retail job losses eclipse the height of the pandemic in 2020.”