Morrisons begins closing 100 loss-making UK convenience stores, starting with Crown Wood branch

Morrisons has started closing a wave of around 100 loss-making UK convenience stores, with the Crown Wood, Bracknell Morrisons Daily among the first confirmed sites.

The branch, which sits in a Morrisons Daily format, also hosts a Post Office counter. That means the local postal service will close too unless a replacement host is found.

The move is part of a wider review of Morrisons’ convenience estate, much of which was built from former McColl’s stores after Morrisons bought the business in 2022.

Crown Wood closure

Local reporting said the Crown Wood store is now set to shut as part of the supermarket’s retrenchment from its smaller convenience format.

The branch has been described as a “fantastic” local store by shoppers, but Morrisons has been reviewing sites that have remained loss-making despite attempts to improve performance.

For Crown Wood customers, the immediate impact is twofold: the loss of the shop itself and the possible loss of the embedded Post Office services, including parcel and banking access.

Wider Morrisons plan

The Crown Wood closure is one of the first local manifestations of a broader programme that Morrisons says will affect about 100 stores across the UK.

Reporting has described the closures as concentrated in Morrisons Daily convenience outlets, many of them former McColl’s locations that were converted after the 2022 takeover.

Another Berkshire Morrisons Daily, in Woodley, Reading, is already scheduled to close on July 12. Reporting says Post Office services there are expected to end before or by the end of the month.

What happens next

The main questions now are how many of the planned closures will be formally named, whether Crown Wood Post Office can secure a replacement host nearby, and how many staff will be redeployed rather than made redundant.

Morrisons has said it is looking to offer alternative roles to affected workers where possible as it trims back the loss-making part of its convenience business.