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Thomas Cook to close 17 more shops

Thomas Cook is to close a further 17 stores affecting 62 members of staff.

Employees were informed yesterday (Thursday) and are under consultation. The company said it would look to retain as many of the staff as possible elsewhere in the business.

The closures include four Cook stores and 13 Co-operative Travel agencies.

Earlier this month, Cook announced it was making 51 homeworking contact centre roles redundant.

In February Cook revealed it was closing 39 shops as part of a review of its retail network following 28 shop closures in October last year, affecting in total around 400 staff.

The company is opening new Discovery stores in high footfall areas and refurbishing existing Neighbourhood stores.

A fourth Discovery store opened in Kingston earlier this month and a fifth last week in Silverburn shopping centre, Glasgow.

In May Cook is due to re-open its Metro Centre store in Gateshead as a Discovery store after being refurbished.

To date 32 refurbishments of Neighbourhood stores have been completed with 14 more due to be complete by the end of May.

Director of retail and customer experience for Thomas Cook UK & Ireland, Kathryn Darbandi, said: “These store closures come as part of the ongoing review of our store network to make sure that we can serve our customers in the way that suits them best.

“We know there is a big role for our shops in helping our customers choose and book the right holiday for them, and I’m looking forward to announcing more Discovery store openings in the coming months to help us to achieve that.”

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