Redundancies at Ferring garden centre

Arun District Council has already approved plans for a much larger car park to support an “unrestricted” A1 retail use for the 125,000sq ft project on the south side of Littlehampton Road.

While most of the centre’s 40 employees will be made redundant during the 10-month closure, senior partner Michael Wiggins said ultimately, they would be re-employed as part of a larger workforce.

Mr Wiggins said: “We were going to stay open during the redevelopment.

“But health and safety factors, as well as the fact we would have been trading at a loss, made us decide to close the whole thing down and restart completely, which will be quicker.”

He said they would be retaining a full staff of more than 40 until Christmas, and then most employees would go to leave a skeleton staff to clear the balance of stock.

“We will be running special offers, and from January there will be absolute bargains,” he said.

The future sales area will be completely under cover, said Mr Wiggins.

“I am afraid there will be no fresh Christmas trees being sold outside this year,” he added.

“We are going to need all the car parking space we can get.”

The redevelopment will provide 587 car parking spaces, compared with the present 199.