Jobs lost as Haldanes store in Wick gets set to close

AROUND 20 staff will lose their jobs on Tuesday, June 14, when Haldanes supermarket in Wick shuts up shop.

Shocked employees have been told that they will be made redundant – just 15 months after the store opened in the former Somerfield building.

In the last few weeks customers at the Macleay Lane premises have been faced with a near-empty tobacco counter, empty shelves and no working fridge or freezer aisles.

A "devastated" Haldanes chief executive officer Arthur Harris confirmed that after taking legal advice both Haldanes Stores Limited and Ruston Retail Limited would be seeking administration.

On behalf of the directors he thanked their employees who find themselves "facing an uncertain future".

Royal Burgh of Wick Community Council chairwoman Coreen Campbell described the closure as "bleak".

"There’s been a few new shops opened recently and I thought we were on an upward trend but this is just one step forward, two steps back," she said.

"Hopefully the new town centre regeneration manager might be able to attract a new store as the premises is already there. We can only be optimistic."

It is understood local staff have had no deliveries for two weeks and first realised there was a problem when the company website was taken offline.

Mr Harris said that the company will be working closely with the administrator to try to secure the future of some of the 44 stores in the Haldanes estate.

The move comes after Mr Harris started legal action last month claiming that his company had acquired shops from the Co-op that were not up to standard. The Co-op also started legal action over the matter. The under-performing shops, said Mr Harris last month, had caused "significant" financial loss for the business and he said he would not have done the deal with the Co-op if he knew this would have been the case.

A spokesman for the Co-operative Group said that it regrets that Haldanes has taken the decision to seek an administration order but offered hope for the future.

"Should the business go into administration, we will look at any ways in which we might be able to help those communities and Haldanes’ employees who will be affected," he said.

"We have acted in good faith throughout our dealings with the business, including providing significant financial support during its start-up phase. Any legal action will be contested vigorously."

It is understood that nearly £2 million has been poured into the business to ensure staff wages would be paid, although it is believed staff at Wick are concerned about the situation.

Mr Harris assured employees and suppliers of Haldane Retail Group Limited, UGO Stores Limited, Haldanes Express Limited and Bakery Products Limited that these businesses would be unaffected by this development and will continue to trade as normal. The Haldanes store chain was formed by Mr Harris in 2009 after the Co-operative Group agreed with the Office of Fair Trading to off-load 133 outlets – in areas where it already had stores – following its £1.5 billion acquisition of Somerfield in 2008.

This time last year it was understood that redundancies at the Haldanes Wick store would be made, but no official figures were ever released by the company.

At the time Mr Harris blamed the "Tesco effect" of losing business to a bigger out-of-town retailer.

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