The Little Waitrose supermarket in Ipswich town centre is to close for two and a half weeks from next weekend to allow vital maintenance work.

The store, which opened in the ground floor of the Corn Exchange in February 2012, will close its doors at 4.30pm on Saturday and will reopen on Tuesday, January 27.

Over recent months the floor in the store has been warped and a spokeswoman for the company said the closure was needed to carry out basic maintenance.

She said: “Waitrose Ipswich will briefly close while it completes necessary maintenance work.

“We are sorry for any inconvenience caused but we will be working as quickly as possible to ensure the minimal amount of disruption to our customers and local residents.”

The company is a tenant of the Corn Exchange which is owned by Ipswich council.

A spokesman for the borough said there were no underlying structural problems with the building and the closure should not affect other parts of the building which includes the Ipswich Film Theatre.

It is understood that many of the chiller cabinets in the store are likely to be replaced and there may be other improvements to the store layout as part of the work.

The store was the first Waitrose to open in the town – it was followed nine months later by the opening of the full-size Waitrose and John Lewis at Home complex at Futura Park near Ransome’s Europark.

The repairs to the Little Waitrose come as work on another convenience store in the town centre steps up a gear with engineers moving into the former Croydon’s store in Tavern Street.

That is being turned into a new Tesco Express store and is due to be open to the public during the summer.