It could be seen as another victim of the High Street but this time it appears that local communities are now going to start to feel the bite of national chain closures.

McKesson UK, the owners of LloydsParmacy sent a statement outlining how they have been making commercial decisions buy and sell pharmacies.

In a statement the firm said that the decision was made due to an increase in financial pressures and also cited COVID-19 as one of the reasons.

It is not clear when the pharmacy will close although there is speculation it could happen as soon as October with rent leases not being renewed.

McKesson added that they aimed to either retain or redeploy staff as much as they could acoss other stores.

But as the shopping landscape continues to be devastated with closures, the impact of a vital local resource disappearing could affect residents harder than most.

A spokesperson for McKesson said:

“Good business practice requires us to regularly review our estate and make appropriate commercial decisions including buying and selling pharmacies. 

These decisions need to be made because of changing market dynamics and increasing financial pressures including the impact of COVID-19, business rates and changes to pharmacy funding.

We are proposing to close a small number of community pharmacies that are no longer commercially viable for us to operate and we are currently consulting with impacted colleagues about those changes. We always prioritise care of our colleagues through any change.

Where there are closures, our aim will be to retain and redeploy as many of our talented colleagues as possible to other vacancies that exist.”

Tilgate Cllr and Mayor of Crawley Francis Guidera said:

“We only found out this morning from a resident. I have spent much of today trying to found out if it was true and if it could be prevented.

It appears Lloyds have already made up their minds to the detriment of our community.

We can only hope that another pharmacy seizes the opportunity to take their place.”