TWELVE jobs are at risk after a book chain announced it was closing one of its Worcester stores.

Waterstones in High Street will shut its doors on Sunday, February 6, and is one of 11 Waterstones’ branches nationally to close on that day.

The 12 staff who work at the store are currently in consultation with the company about their futures.

A spokesman said: “Our other Worcester branch in The Shambles is not affected.

"We would hope to redeploy the staff from the High Street elsewhere.”

The announcement is less than a month after HMV, Waterstones’ parent company, revealed it had suffered a 12.6 per cent slump in like-for-like sales in the five weeks to Christmas and was struggling to meet the terms of a bank loan.

The closures of 20 branches of Waterstones and 40 HMV stores have been proposed to save the company £10 million in 2011.