There has been good news for the town of Letchworth with McColls surviving a nationwide cull of stores.

Amid the sadness of 1,300 jobs at risk nationally following the decision to axe 132 McColl's, our town's store has survived the axe.

The one-stop store on Station Road, staffed by friendly, helpful faces lives to fight another day, as McColls owner Morrisons insists the convenience chain, which it recently bought out of administration, still has 'strong potential'.

Letchworth's McColl's, situated at 73 Station Road, also has a Post Office where people can send parcels, make payments including utility bills and purchase travel money. The store also has a National Lottery terminal.

As Letchworth Nub News has previously reported, the UK's fifth-biggest supermarket chain, which beat the owners of Asda to buy the retailer's 1,164 stores and newsagents after it went into administration earlier this year, said that despite the cuts it believed the business is viable.

McColl's can trace its history back to 1901, when a Scottish footballer, Robert Smyth McColl, opened the first RS McColl in Glasgow.

The modern day company started in 1973 as a vending machine operator, going to purchase convenience store chains prior to concentrating on the retail sector at the start of this century.

"We very much regret the proposed closure of 132 loss-making stores but it is, very sadly, an important step towards the regeneration of the business," said Joseph Sutton, Morrisons' convenience, online and wholesale director. "We have a great deal of work to do but there's no question that McColl's is a business with strong potential."

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