Wilko has started redundancy consultations with nearly 4,000 staff members as it reorganises its business across its more than 400 stores in the UK.

Around 1,000 senior supervisory roles and a "significant amount" of customer service posts will be created under the plans, according to the firm which saw pre-tax profits fall 80% from £25.9m to £5.1m in the year up to January 28, 2017.

Retail director Anthony Houghton said the changes would help the company to

 "stay relevant" to customers. “Like-for-like sales had increased despite the challenging retail landscape but this was not translating into positive results".