KENT butcher Dewhurst has announced it is closing 60 shops, including two in the county, with administrators seeking a buyer for a remaining 35 shops.

The Tunbridge Wells-based company owns shops in Gillingham, Sheerness and Sittingbourne.

Staff at the company’s Gillingham shop have been told it will continue to trade, while staff at the Sheerness and Sittingbourne shops said they did not know what the future held.

Dewhurst operates the largest chain of high street butchers in the UK and employs 600 staff nationally.

Despite a buy out in 2005 by West Country butchers Lloyd Maunder, the chain has continued to struggle in a difficult market, which has seen supermarkets dominate grocery trade.

In a statement, the company said: "Despite our best efforts and the application of experience gained in running our own chain of butcher’s shops, the recent trading conditions have proved to be much worse than those we had anticipated."

LLoyd Maunder said increases in rent and energy prices and a "substantial" decline in trading conditions over the last six months had affected business.

The company added: "We can no longer justify the much heavier investment being demanded by Dewhurst’s bankers to support this operation. We ourselves are the principal creditor involved."

Shay Bannon and Graham Randall, business restructuring partners at BDO Stoy Hayward, have been appointed joint administrators of Dewhurst’s at the request of the company directors.

She said that to secure a sale of the business and assets of the company, it had been necessary to restructure the business, closing 60 unprofitable stores.

Shay Bannon commented: "We have conducted a review of the Dewhurst business, and in order to secure a sale of the business and assets, it has been necessary to close a number of stores with immediate effect."