Job losses in St Albans: Jessops announces closure (From St Albans & Harpenden Review)
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Job losses in St Albans as Jessops, in The Maltings, announces closure
12:00pm Monday 14th January 2013 in News
By Zoe Forsey, Senior Reporter
Job losses in St Albans: Jessops announces closure
Employees at the St Albans branch of Jessops will lose their jobs after the store announced it has been forced to close down.
The photography company announced it will begin closing all of its 187 shops this morning, resulting in about 1,370 job losses.
The chain, which has a branch in The Maltings, was forced into administration on January 9.
Joint administrator Rob Hunt said: "Since my appointment, we have reviewed the position of the business and held extensive discussions with suppliers around their support for ongoing trading.
"It is apparent that we cannot continue to trade and as a result we have had to make the difficult decision to begin the closure of all 187 Jessops stores at the close of business today.
"Regrettably, this will result in around 1,370 job losses across the stores with further job losses likely, in due course, at the head office in Leicester.
"The stock will be collected over the coming days and returned to a central warehouse. It will be returned to suppliers if they are entitled to it. As a consequence of the closure, Jessops is no longer able to accept returned product from customers.
"This is an extremely sad day for Jessops and its employees. We are very grateful for the support we have received since our appointment and we will continue to ensure that employees are paid as they assist us during the closure."
Comments(2)
cummingam
says...
3:38pm Mon 14 Jan 13
We have also lost most of the free 30 minutes / 1 hour parking that I used to often use to pop inter the City Center just to buy a small item. If I have to pay a few pounds to park, then I only go to the City Center when I have a bigger shop to do (else you pay a £1.20 to park, just to find the small item you were after is out of stock!).
I often used to shop at Winchcombe Cameras - Jessops was never as half as good as the shop they took over.
fight rates says...
12:36pm Mon 14 Jan 13
,Whittard tea, 1 Santander Branch
Baroque bar after 2 month, Blue Apple - Maltings, Optical express,
Olio & Farina, Crabtree & Evelyn,
Mark Wilkinson Kitchens. The list is growing again with over 60 local shop closures last year. And what does the Government do to help? They are putting up the business rates on my small shop once again this year. We as shop owners are paying the highest property tax/business rates in the world & yet they allow our Multinational/online competition to pay no corporation tax.