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SUPERMARKET elephantine Tesco could swoop successful to prevention much than 100 Post Office branches from closure.
The improvement follows an announcement by Post Office president Nigel Railton conscionable months agone that the organisation intended to merchantability disconnected each its straight owned "Crown" branches.
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Speaking to a radical of MPs this week, Railton confirmed that Tesco had expressed involvement successful acquiring the sites, according to a study by Sky News.
The branches successful question presently employment astir 1,000 workers, whose future hangs successful the equilibrium arsenic the Post Office moves guardant with its plans.
The determination to merchantability disconnected its straight owned sites is simply a cardinal constituent of the state-owned firm's strategy to displacement wholly to a franchised concern model.
Franchising is a business model wherever a institution (the franchisor) grants support to an idiosyncratic oregon radical (the franchisee) to run a concern utilizing its brand, products, and processes successful speech for a fee.
Approximately 99% of Post Office branches are present operated by franchisees, with lone 1% of sites being straight managed.
The Post Office said successful November that it does not program to trim its astir 8,500 branches, which autarkic postmasters and section businesses operate.
Additionally, determination are 2,000 Post Offices managed by retailers, specified as WHSmith and the Co-op, which volition stay unaffected.
A Post Office spokesperson said: "We are afloat committed to engaging openly and transparently with MPs regarding immoderate imaginable plans related to our Directly Managed Branch (DMB) network.
"Since inviting expressions of involvement for 108 Post Offices that we presently operate, we person received involvement from retail partners and autarkic postmasters successful the hundreds.
"We stay committed to engaging with our trade unions implicit the imaginable aboriginal ownership of our Directly Managed Branches, which are loss-making for us, into March earlier updating our colleagues who enactment successful these branches connected immoderate imaginable next steps."
Inside the hubs restoring precocious thoroughfare banking and reversing the tide of wide subdivision closures
Tesco has been approached for comment.
The fig of Post Offices successful cognition crossed the UK has importantly declined since the 1960s, erstwhile determination were astir 25,000 branches.
This diminution is partially owed to much radical receiving benefits and pensions directly into their slope accounts, reducing their request for the Post Office's services.
Post Offices were erstwhile the sole providers of postage stamps, but present stamps tin beryllium purchased from supermarkets and petrol stations.
Over the past decade, the fig of branches has stabilised astatine astir 11,500.
Despite these changes, the 364-year-old instauration remains wholly owned by the authorities and continues to beryllium Britain's largest retail network.
TROUBLED TIMES
It comes aft it was revealed that authorities ministers are exploring plans to transfer ownership to employees, akin to the exemplary utilized by the John Lewis Partnership.
It is based connected the thought that its workers are each part-owners of the institution and person a stock of yearly profits.
Whitehall insiders admitted that the Post Office is successful a batch of occupation and is lone financially viable due to the fact that of an yearly subsidy it receives from the government.
Calls for a review of the company's ownership exemplary person grown amid rising nationalist choler astatine the wrongful condemnation of hundreds of sub-postmasters.
Highlighted by the ITV drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office, it has been labelled Britain's biggest miscarriage of justness aft they were accused of stealing currency from their branches.
Many had their lives destroyed, were imprisoned, and immoderate adjacent passed distant oregon committed termination earlier yet being exonerated.
Former sub-postmaster Sir Alan Bates, who tirelessly campaigned for justice, is inactive waiting to hold connected a compensation colony and has called connected the authorities to see suing erstwhile directors of the company.
Why are retailers closing shops?
EMPTY shops person go an eyesore connected galore British precocious streets and are often symbolic of a municipality centre’s decline.
The Sun's concern editor Ashley Armstrong explains wherefore truthful galore retailers are shutting their doors.
In galore cases, retailers are shutting stores due to the fact that they are nary longer the money-makers they erstwhile were due to the fact that of the emergence of online shopping.
Falling store income and rising unit costs person made it adjacent much costly for shops to enactment open.
The British Retail Consortium has predicted that the Treasury's hike to leader NICs from April 2025, volition outgo the retail assemblage £2.3billion.
At the aforesaid time, the minimum wage volition emergence to £12.21 an hr from April, and the minimum wage for radical aged 18-20 volition emergence to £10 an hour, an summation of £1.40.
In immoderate cases, retailers are shutting a store and reopening a caller store astatine the different extremity of a precocious thoroughfare to bespeak however a municipality has changed.
The occupation is that erstwhile a large store closes, footfall falls crossed the section precocious street, which puts much shops astatine hazard of closing.
Retail parks are progressively fashionable with shoppers, who privation to beryllium capable to get easy, escaped parking astatine a clip erstwhile section councils person hiked parking charges successful towns.
Many retailers including Next and Marks & Spencer person been shutting stores connected the precocious thoroughfare and taking bigger stores successful better-performing retail parks instead.
In immoderate cases, stores person been unopen erstwhile a retailer goes bust, arsenic successful the lawsuit of Carpetright, Debenhams, Dorothy Perkins, Paperchase, Ted Baker, The Body Shop, Topshop and Wilko to sanction a few.
What's progressively communal is erstwhile a concatenation goes bust a rival retailer oregon backstage equity steadfast snaps up the intelligence spot rights truthful they tin ain the marque and merchantability it online.
They whitethorn spell connected to unfastened a fistful of stores if determination is lawsuit demand, but determination are seldom ever arsenic galore stores oregon successful the aforesaid places.
The Centre for Retail Research (CRR) has warned that astir 17,350 retail sites are expected to unopen down this year.
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