Supermarket giant Morrison is to close four stores, putting more than 400 jobs at risk.
The decision was taken after a performance review of the company’s 494 stores.
Recent industry data has revealed the Bradford based business to be the worst performing among the UK’s big four.
In the three months to August 11th its sales are down 2.7%.
Its market share has dropped from 10.3% a year ago to 10.1% now.
A Morrisons spokesperson said:
“We will now be going through a consultation process at the stores and discussing how to reduce redundancies and where possible redeploy colleagues.”
The stores earmarked for closure include supermarkets in Crawley, Ince in Wigan, Shirley in Solihull and Swindon Regents Circus.
All Britain’s big four supermarket chains – Tesco, Asda, Sainsburys and Morrisons – are under pressure from the German discounters Aldi and Lidl.
Both are expanding quickly and increasing online sales.
Last month, Waitrose said it was closing seven supermarkets to focus on expanding its home delivery arm.
