ANOTHER supermarket is to leave Kidderminster - just weeks after an estimated £100,000 refurbishment.

Somerfield, in New Road, will close on April 15. The news - which affects 38 employees - comes after Waitrose announced last month that it would be leaving the Swan Centre in July.

Somerfield staff said they were amazed by the news because the store had only last week re-opened following an extensive refit, believed to have cost £100,000.

One said: "I wouldn't have thought they would have spent so much money on something one minute and closed it the next."

The refit included repainting the outside of the store, refurbishing the inside and incorporating homeware shop, Tchibo.

Another employee, who has worked at the former Kwik Save for nine years, said: "I was totally surprised. We have just had a refit, sales were increasing and, all of a sudden, they have turned around and said 'you are losing your job'."

"It is devastation, that is the only way I could describe it. Everybody is totally shell-shocked but it is also bad because Waitrose is going to close. If people only know supermarket work then they are going to find it difficult to find another job."

A statement from Somerfield said the decision was taken "following an extensive business review" although it was too early to say what would happen to the store.

Employees were being spoken to about redundancy packages and about working at other Somerfield stores or businesses in Kidderminster, it said.

Staff, however, said they were sceptical about their prospects. One explained: "At least 50 per cent of the staff can't really travel, they have no mode of transport and the nearest shops are at Kingswinford or Broms-grove."

A mum who works at the store said: "When you have got two children at school you have to work around them. There is no chance you can work that far away."

She added: "I am very upset about it."

Peter Picken, chairman of retailers group, the Kidderminster Town Centre Partnership, said he thought the opening of Tesco in Castle Road in 2002 had hit other stores.

He said: "When we had the Tesco application the comment was made that it would affect other existing supermarkets and it certainly looks as though that is the case."