A bakery in Cambridgeshire is closing one of its seven shops due to a steady decline in business in the town it is based in.

Norths Bakery, which trades as Boswell & Son, has announced that its shop in Littleport will close on Christmas Eve, with the loss of four jobs.

Philip Boswell, owner of the business, said: “The lease on the shop runs out in 2016 and it has not been trading very well for a number of years. We decided not to renew the lease and to concentrate on the other six shops and the wholesale business.”

He said that business on the High Street of the town had steadily declined after the Co-op built a store on the edge of the Littleport, and slowly businesses had declined with a branch of Barclays bank and a pharmacy closing recently.

Boswell said there had been a bakers shop on the site for many years with Norths Bakery acquiring the business just over a decade ago, and that sales no longer warranted keeping it open.

He said only one of the company’s other shops, the one in Ely, was near to Littleport, and as that was fully staffed it was not possible to relocate any of the Littleport staff so they would have to be made redundant.

The business comprises a family run craft bakery with shops in Sawston, Linton, Willingham, Waterbeach, Chatteris and Ely.

It also offers a sandwich and buffet service in the Cambridgeshire area, and makes wholesale deliveries to the areas of Saffron Walden, Haverhill, Royston, Cambridge, Ely and Huntingdon.

Topics