Asda puts hundreds of jobs at risk with proposed closure of London home shopping centre

Retailer said centre earmarked for closure could no longer meet the speed of fulfilment and product ranges that customers expect

Asda is considering closing a home shopping centre in London, putting 261 jobs at risk, the supermarket confirmed today, blaming a competitive retail market.

The company said it is entering into consultation with colleagues at its Enfield Home Shopping Centre over proposals to close the facility.

The centre employs 261 workers and delivers shopping to 4,500 customers every week.

Supermarkets have not been immune to the problems afflicting the UK high street. Last week, the John Lewis Partnership announced that it was closing five Waitrose branches, and in May, Tesco said it was shutting down Tesco Direct, its loss-making non-food website.

Meanwhile, Asda, which is owned by Walmart, is currently attempting to merge with Sainsbury’s, which is widely seen as an attempt to gain the protection greater market share will bring as Amazon continues to encroach on the supermarket space.

Simon Gregg, vice president of grocery home shopping at Asda, said: “In a competitive retail market, where customers rightly expect great value and ease of service, we are always looking at how we can improve our operations to meet their expectations.

“Despite great efforts by our colleagues at Enfield, restrictions on the site mean we are not able to make the necessary further improvements to meet the speed of fulfilment and product ranges that our customers now expect. Therefore, we’ve entered a consultation process with colleagues on proposals to close the facility.”

He added: “Our current proposals involve expanding capacity in our Heston centre and discussing options for colleagues to take on roles in other neighbouring stores. Whilst conversations about change are never easy, we would always work to find new opportunities for impacted colleagues, with redundancy as a last resort.”

News of the proposed closure followed the announcement by the administrators of Poundworld that 40 more of the discount chain’s stores are set to close, bringing the total number of redundancies since the firm collapsed to almost 1,800.