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Waitrose bucks grocery trend for store closures with 14 new openings for 2015

Published:  14 January, 2015

Waitrose is bucking the trend of store closures and job losses in the grocery sector by opening 14 new outlets in 2015, with more in the pipeline for 2016.

Waitrose is bucking the trend of store closures and job losses in the grocery sector by opening 14 new outlets in 2015, with more in the pipeline for 2016.

WaitroseWaitrose is outperforming its grocery competitors and brings good news of new store openings to the sector

There will be seven new supermarkets and seven new Little Waitrose convenience stores opening next year, with one other store being relocated and two others redeveloped.

The retailer says its Little Waitrose shops will be opening outside the M25, after last year saw a glut opening in central London.

The springtime will see a new supermarket open in Wollaton, Nottinghamshire, on the site of a former Co-op store. It will also relocate its existing Horsham, West Sussex branch next to the new John Lewis at home store there.

In the summer plans are afoot for a new supermarket in Malngavie, Scotland and one in Bagshot, Surrye. Saffron Walden's store will get a "major redevelopment".

Autumn will see new stores open at Botley Road, Oxford; London's Kings Cross - which is also getting a new cookery school; Basingstoke, Hampshire and Guildford in Surrey.  London's Bayswater store will get a major facelift.

Heathfield in East Sussex will get a little Waitrose, subject to planning, and up to six further little Waitroses are also in the pipeline, the grocer says.

It already has five supermarkets planned for 2016 - in Ayr in Scotland, Truro in Cornwall, West Bridgford in Notts, Shrewsbury and Worcester.

In recent days we have heard about other major grocers pulling back from expansion plans, amid declining profits and falling market share. Tesco said it was closing 43 stores and would not go ahead with plans for 49 new outlets, which would mean "substantial job losses". It is also closing its Cheshunt headquarters, where 3,000 people are employed.

Morrisons said yesterday it would be closing 10 loss-making stores with the loss of around 400 jobs.

Sainsbury's yesterday confirmed plans to shed 500 jobs at its three "store support centres" in London, Coventry and Manchester, but said it has no plans to close stores. 

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