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Sunday shopping hours reform ‘will hit small retailers’

GOVERNMENT plans to devolve Sunday trading powers will cost almost 3,270 jobs, small retailers said yesterday.

The Tories’ blueprint will see decision-making on big stores’ Sunday opening hours handed to local councils.

But the Association of Convenience Stores (ACS) said any extension of Sunday opening for big stores would also cost small high street shops more than £870 million, because business would be transferred to supermarkets and out-of-town shopping centres.

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