Craigavon’s B&Q store to close months early with loss of up to 50 jobs

Craigavon’s B&Q store will close this weekend – a good six months earlier than expected.

Up to 50 jobs could be lost as a result of the closure.

It was revealed at the end of September that the outlet, located at Rushmere, was one of five Northern Ireland stores which would be shutting.

B&Q confirmed then that it “proposes to move its business to four store locations in Northern Ireland by January 2017, with the closure of five stores”.

Boucher Road in Belfast, Buncrana Road in Derry/Londonderry and Ballymena stores have already closed.

The Craigavon store was expected to remain trading until later in the year.

But the shutters are now due to come down at 5pm tomorrow (Saturday), April 16.

The company is directing customers to its stores at Newry and Lisburn after the closure of the Craigavon outlet.

The latter, at Sprucefield, is also expected to close before the end of the year.

A spokesperson for the company confirmed staff at both Craigavon and Lisburn had been informed of the closure plans and said they would try to find alternative roles for as many of the workers as possible.

By the end of the year, B&Q’s sole trading stores here will be located at Newry, Newtownabbey, Coleraine and the Holywood Exchange, outside Belfast.

Speaking in September, when the announcement was first made, Diarmuid Walsh, B&Q’s divisional director for Northern Ireland B&Q, said: “B&Q has served the people of Northern Ireland for 26 years and the decision to reshape our store network in the region has been a hard one to make, however it forms an important part of our mission to reinvent home improvement for the modern age.

“We remain committed to our customers here and will be investing to offer an enhanced range of home improvement essentials at the four remaining B&Q stores as well as online at diy.com.

“This now offers over 40,000 home improvement products with the convenience of being delivered to the customer’s home or to their local store, through our Click & Collect service.

“Over the coming months, we will be focused on redeploying as many colleagues impacted by these changes as we can.”

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