Tesco axes 24-hour opening at Brownhills store

The supermarket in Silver Street is one of 76 which will close their doors between midnight and 6am.

The retail giant says it wants to adapt to changing shopping habits and free up staff to stock shelves at night.

Tesco also has 24-hour stores in Stourbridge, at Burnt Tree on the Dudley-Sandwell border, West Bromwich, Walsall, Willenhall, Cannock, Stafford, Rugeley, Hednesford and Lichfield but these will not be affected.

Bosses say the move will have a 'minimal' impact on workers with normal night time activities – such as refilling shelves – continuing in these shops.

Affected branches – which mostly include Extra and Superstore sites – will see their hours change between March 14 and April 11 with staff being informed of the move yesterday.

Announcing the plans, Tesco's retail director Tony Hoggett said: "We're always thinking about how to serve our customers better in each of our stores and with the growth of online grocery shopping, these stores saw very few customers during the night.

"It makes much more sense for colleagues at those stores to focus on replenishing the shelves instead and making sure they're fully stocked when they open their doors at 6am."

A statement from the firm added: "Being responsive to the way customers want to shop in store means making a much more efficient use of Tesco time and resources, making savings for Tesco which can be passed on to customers."

Brownhills councillor Kenneth Ferguson said: "I think the people who use the supermarket at this time will be impacted but I imagine it would be a very low number of people.

"If this is the case I wouldn't see any major issue with this change."

Around the clock trading began in Tesco stores in 1996.

The announcement to change opening hours came after Tesco posted a surprise rise in sales during the Christmas period.

It hailed a 'strong Christmas' after revealing a 1.3 per cent rise in UK like-for-like sales over the six weeks to January 9.

It was a sharp contrast to the start of 2015 when bosses announced they closing 42 shops and scrapping plans for 49 new stores across the country including a £60 million superstore at Wolverhampton's former Royal Hospital.