Weymouth town centre is to lose another major retailer, amid the news that BrightHouse is to close its St Mary Street store – one of 30 UK branches to be axed with the loss of scores of jobs.

The national retailer – which leases household goods to customers on a repayment basis – said it will close the store on March 23.

It follows news that Weymouth-based fashion retailer tReds has been placed into administration.

Representatives for BrightHouse were unable to comment on the number of jobs being cut, but said that employees had been informed.

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A spokesman said: “We have taken the very difficult decision to close 30 stores in the next two months.

"We are working to redeploy as many people as possible into alternative roles, but redundancies will be inevitable".

Claudia Moore, chief operations officer of Weymouth BID, expressed her concerns over job cuts being made at the branch.

The store is at a key site in the middle of the town centre.

Mrs Moore said: "Weymouth BID wishes all BrightHouse staff the best of luck for the future.

"It is our hope that such a well-located and spacious premises will soon be leased out again".

Customers in Weymouth will still need to make repayments as normal after the branch closes.

A spokesman said: "We will be speaking to all customers affected by the store closures and either transferring them to another local store or serving them online.

"We’re also introducing PayPoint, allowing customers to pay BrightHouse in cash at 28,000 locations across the UK.”

During 2017 BrightHouse agreed to pay out £14.8 million to 249,000 customers, after the financial watchdog found that it did not act as a “responsible lender”. Following a review, Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) found that "lending to some customers may not have been affordable and payments should have been refunded".

In January this year it was announced that BrightHouse CEO Hamish Paton would be stepping down from the business "to take up an opportunity opportunity outside the BrightHouse Group".

  •  The news follows the shock announcement last week that a long-standing local business, tReds, has been placed into administration.

However, there are still positive signs of life at the Weymouth-based fashion chain as according to administrators at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), no redundancies have been made.

A PwC spokesman said: "The administrators are pleased with the interest shown in the business and are exploring this further with a number of parties".