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The Co-operative Group has confirmed that its DC in Chelston, Somerset is to close by the end of November with its Portbury, Bristol site following suit next April.

It comes after the recent opening of its new £20m RDC at Avonmouth and confirmation last week that consolidation would lead to job losses.

The retailer said around 118 drivers and 112 warehouse operatives at Chelston would be taking redundancy, but that no drivers or warehouse staff would be made redundant at the Portbury site.

The Portbury site is around five miles away from the new RDC and staff there are all transferring to the Avonmouth facility under Tupe. Warehouse operatives and drivers at the Portbury site will transfer to Avonmouth in three stages starting in January 2013.

A spokeswoman for Co-op stressed that the 435,750ft2 Avonmouth RDC, near junction 18 of the M5, represents a £22m investment and will secure employment for around 900 people when fully operational next May. The site will provide a net gain of around 200 jobs.

All staff at Chelston were given an opportunity to move to the new Avonmouth site. In total, around 61 staff from Chelston will do so under Tupe, of which 20 are drivers and 41 are in the warehouse.

There are currently no plans to close any other sites as a result of the new Avonmouth RDC.

However the new facility will serve around 492 Co-op food stores in the Bristol, north Somerset and south Wales areas, and operations will be transferred to Avonmouth if it proves more efficient to serve those stores from there.

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