As the Morrisons supermarket chain prepares to open a new convenience store in Marlborough, the question is being asked is: Will it be third time lucky?
For the new store is taking over the High Street premises of M&Co, which has announced a Closing Down sale after being known to have its lease up for sale since last November.
That’s when the company revealed its first operating loss — £5 million compared with a £14.8 million profit the previous year — in its 50 year history, though it announced it was then back in profit.
Emma Byrne, manager of M&Co, told Marlborough News Online today (Saturday): “We are closing on May 22 and Morrisons are taking over. There are 10 of us on the staff and it is all very sad and disappointing.
“But we understand the current economic climate. It’s happening everywhere with stores closing.”
Morrisons, which has been also hit by a sales slump, will now follow in the footsteps of two supermarkets that occupied the same site.
First there for some 30 years was Somerfield. It was then sold, together with a number of its other sites, to Marks and Spencer for their Simply Food chain, which opened on the Marlborough site in 2007.
But M&S too found that competition with the major Waitrose supermarket, diagonally across the High Street, was tough and closed in March, 2009, with the loss of 22 jobs.
Morrisons has yet to respond to two requests from Marlborough News Online as to details of its new store after it began advertising for staff to operate one of its expanding chain of convenience stores in Marlborough.
Another is also earmarked to open in Wootton Bassett after Morrisons.