BUYERS have made offers for a pick’n’mix’ selection of 300 High Street branches out of the 800 Woolworth outlets up and down the country, administrators Deloitte’s have revealed. But they won’t say if any final deals have been struck on individual stores. Meanwhile some branches have had their closing dates extended, including at least one in East London

By Else Kvist

BUYERS have made offers for a pick’n’mix’ selection of 300 High Street branches out of the 800 Woolworth outlets up and down the country, administrators Deloitte’s have revealed.

Some 22,000 permanent and 5,000 temporary and seasonal staff around the country are affected by Woolies going into liquidation.

Meanwhile, some branches have had their closing dates extended, including two in East London.

The branches have been closing in batches of 200 with the last few shutting up shop by January 6. The Poplar branch in Chrisp Street Market has already turned the lights out, a week ahead of Bethnal Green Road and Roman Road which were due to shut on January 5.

The closing date for Bethnal Green and Roman Road have been extended by 24 hours to January 6.

They open at 9am on Monday as normal and stay open until there is “no more stock left.”

That may be around 4pm, but possibly as early as noon, one staff member predicted.

Shelves have been emptying quickly, with some shoppers complaining that hardly any stock was left, apart from CDs, DVDs, gift tags, serviettes and wrapping paper.

Even the pickn’mix’ sweets counter has been emptied out by hoards of bargain hunters.