McColl’s sells off 100 newsagent stores: Which shops are closing near you?

Yesterday, McColl’s Retail Group announced that it was selling off 100 of its McColl’s newsagent outlets to invest more in convenience store expansion.

The company said it was offloading underperforming stores so it could concentrate on the growing convenience market, which is expected to be worth £49bn by 2019.

“We have continued to make good progress on enhancing our offering and capturing growth in the convenience market,” said James Lancaster, McColl’s chief executive. “As we continue to grow our convenience store estate we constantly review our wider store portfolio, and from this we have identified 100 newsagents which no longer align to our strategic objectives.”

Last month, McColl’s revealed like-for-like sales fell 2.3% in the 13-week period to August 30. The company has a total of 1,346 stores in the UK – 866 of which are convenience stores. It plans to increase that to 1,000 convenience stores by the end of next year, converting profitable newsagents to a convenience format, where appropriate.

Use our interactive map to find out which stores are closing near you.