Bargain hunters flocked to branches of Woolworths on Thursday afternoon to try and take advantage of a closing down sale.

The aim of the sale was to sell as much stock as possible to pay off a £345m debt owed by the company, which has stores in Southall, Greenford and West Ealing.

Although adverts promised cuts of up to 50 per cent, many products were only reduced by ten or 20 per cent.

It will be a great loss for Southall and would be very sad if Woolworths was to be replaced by a "shopping centre" full of shoplets, as there are too many already.

What Southall really needs is a big name store to attract shoppers.

Hundreds of other jobs have been lost at distribution centres in Greenford and Hayes, related to Woolworths.