THE St Ives branch of the off licence chain, The Local, is to close. The joint administrators of First Quench Retailing, which trades as Threshers, Wine Rack, The Local, Haddows, Bottoms Up and Victoria Wine, today (Friday) announced the closure of a furt

THE St Ives branch of the off licence chain, The Local, is to close.

The joint administrators of First Quench Retailing, which trades as Threshers, Wine Rack, The Local, Haddows, Bottoms Up and Victoria Wine, today (Friday) announced the closure of a further 391 stores, resulting in 2,140 redundancies.

The stores are due to close by December 20.

The St Ives branch in Ramsey Road employs six people and is the second Huntingdonshire branch to be forced to closed following the announcement to close the Godmanchester branch of Threshers.

Richard Fleming, UK Head of restructuring of KPMG and joint administrator, said: "Unfortunately, despite the initial high level of interest, it remains difficult for buyers to complete deals in the current tough market.

"However, we are still in talks regarding the sale of over 100 stores and hope to be able to make a further announcement about this shortly.

"We also remain hopeful that some of the 391 stores announced today might still be sold as going concerns before the closure process is completed, but with stock now running low in the remaining stores it has been necessary to make plans to close them."

Two sales of parts of the business have been sold - 13 stores and the Wine Rack brand to Venus Wine & Spirits Merchants Plc and the sale of eight stores to SEP Properties Ltd.