The Body Shop is axing 55 jobs in Sussex including 17 staff from The Body Shop Tour and five from the Trading Post.

Other redundancies are among visual merchandising, finance and home selling and internet staff.

Ten more people have been found alternative jobs at the Littlehampton HQ, bringing the total affected to 65.

The shake-up follows a series of redundancies at the site in recent years.

A Body Shop spokeswoman said: "The objective of the reorganisation is to improve sales growth in UK stores and through The Body Shop at Home direct selling operation.

"Additional resources are being focused on the core areas of marketing and product.

"The Body Shop is working with staff who have been made redundant to ensure they receive financial support, career advice and job search support, as well as access to Littlehampton Business Partnership and other local support services.

"We will also work with the community leaders to minimise the impact of these redundancies on the area."

The Argus revealed possible job losses last month when the company confirmed more than a dozen employees were facing redundancy with the closure of The Body Shop Tour and the Trading Post.

Many tour and shop employees broke down in tears as one by one they were called into their manager's office.

Minutes before, a party of tourists was asked to get back on their coach after being told the Trading Post was closed.

A relative of one of the tour staff said: "The news came completely out of the blue. The staff had just ordered new uniforms and the tours were fully booked.

"Most of them were full time and have families to support."

A Body Shop spokesman said the decision to shut down the tour and Trading Post shop was taken partly because COSi, the South African company which took over Body Shop manufacturing operations in February 2000, had moved some of its operations to Wales.

He said: "Additionally, both the tour and the shop were loss-making and it was therefore not sustainable to continue to run them."

One worker said: "The mood is not good at the moment. We don't exactly know how many more jobs will go but I think everything will become clearer over the next week."

Body Shop founder Anita Roddick, who opened her first shop in Brighton in 1976, stepped down as co-chairwoman in February this year.

Last October, more than 300 jobs were affected after the closure of the former Body Shop cosmetics factory at Wick, Littlehampton.

COSi managing director Ian McNally said the company hoped to accommodate about 150 additional employees in alternative work but a further 150 would be made redundant. About 300 continue to work at COSi's Watersmead site.