News that dozens more people are facing redundancy completed a miserable week on the Sussex jobs front.

Scores of staff face the dole after the administrators of First Quench Retailing, which trades as Threshers, Wine Rack and The Local, yesterday announced the closure of a further 391 stores in the UK, resulting in 2,140 redundancies.

In Sussex, 29 stores will shut, including seven in Brighton and Hove, resulting in the loss of about 150 jobs. These were the last Threshers stores in the county. Other stores are closing in Langney, Crowborough, Eastbourne, Bexhill, Seaford, Hastings, Wadhurst, Forest Row, Worthing, Lancing, Bognor, Haywards Heath, East Grinstead, Horsham, Henfield and Pulborough.

The closures will be phased in from Tuesday. Closing-down sales will take place until all stock is sold.

Richard Fleming, of KPMG and joint administrator, said: “Despite the initial high level of interest, it remains difficult for buyers to complete deals in the current market.

“We remain hopeful some of the 391 stores announced today might still be sold as going concerns before the closure process is completed, but with stock now running low in the remaining stores it has been necessary to make plans to close them.”

There are now only 100 First Quench stores operating in the UK.

Other depressing news this week came from the University of Sussex, which announced plans to cut 115 posts in a bid to save £5 million.

Courses earmarked for staff cuts include life sciences, informatics and engineering and design. The Schools of English and History, Art History and Philosophy will also be affected.

Arun District Council contributed to the misery by revealing proposals to cut 44 jobs as it tries to make savings of £3.2 million during the next two financial years.

There was some positive news as Worthing-based shares firm Equiniti said it was creating 500 jobs at its headquarters, though these are only temporary positions.

A Threshers store manager, who asked not to be named, said he was “gutted” after being told to close and blamed First Quench bosses. He said: “It is totally unfair because there has been mis-management from the top down. Individual store managers should have been allowed to order their own stock but instead we got stuff bought in from central office which was rubbish and didn’t sell.”

He expects to only get one week’s redundancy for every year of service.

He added: “It could not come at a worse time – just before Christmas. It feels as if I’ve been robbed.”