TWO SUFFOLK butcher shops will remain open despite a series of national closures, The Evening Star can reveal today.Dewhurst Butchers has gone into administration after a drop in sales and 60 of its 95 stores have been shut down with immediate effect.

TWO SUFFOLK butcher shops will remain open despite a series of national closures, The Evening Star can reveal today.

Dewhurst Butchers has gone into administration after a drop in sales and 60 of its 95 stores have been shut down with immediate effect.

However, administrators at BDO Stoy Hayward today said the stores at Market Place in Stowmarket and Buttermarket in Bury St Edmunds, will escape the closures.

The company is based in Tunbridge Wells, currently employing around 600 people nationwide.

The closure of 60 of its “unprofitable stores” is a move by the administrators so the can then sell the remaining outlets.

The future of the Stowmarket and Bury St Edmunds stores after this sale is unclear, as is the number of job losses.

BDO Stoy Hayward's business restructuring partner, Shay Bannon, said: “To secure a sale of the business and assets of the company it has been necessary to restructure the business, closing 60 unprofitable stores.

“We have conducted a review of the Dewhurst business and in order to secure a sale of the business and assets it has been necessary to close a number of stores with immediate effect.”

Dewhurst Butchers said in a statement that the firm had invested significant sums in its business over the past year but could no longer justify heavy investment.

It said there has been rent and energy price increases and that the early part of this year has seen a significant sales deterioration, resulting in deepening losses.

No one from Dewhurst Butchers was available today to comment about the Suffolk stores.