Woolworths will end 99 years of high street trading by January 5 when it closes 807 stores and lays off 27,000 permanent and temporary staff.

Deloitte, the accountancy firm in charge of managing the collapsed chain, will now abandon its attempts to sell either the Woolworths’ retail group or the distribution business, Entertainment UK, as a going concern.

Neville Kahn, a partner at Deloitte, said: “We are now moving to the closing-down sale period."

The stores will be shut down in groups of 200 stores a day on December 27 and 30 as well as January 2 and 5. Overall, the retail arm's 22,000 full-time staff will be made redundant and an additional 5,000 temporary workers will lose their positions.

All staff will be paid until the end of December, after which they will apply for statutory redundancy.

Some 300 of the stores are under offer from other retailers and Mr Kahn said: "They will be able to offer new employment to people in the area.”

Mr Kahn added: "It's a very difficult situation for people, particularly the employees, and we're trying to deal with it in as sensible a way as possible".

He said that Deloitte was, where data protection laws permit, passing the names of employees to the retailers trying to purchase the Woolworths stores.

Mr Kahn said interest in the chain had come from Africa, Asia and the Americas as well as from British companies.

Parties have also approached Deloitte to purchase the Woolworths brand as well as the Worthit! sub-brand, Ladybird chidren's wear and two toy brands. Mr Kahn said he was confident the Woolworths name would be resurrected in some form.

He also confirmed that Zavvi, formerly Virgin Megastore, owed money to Woolworths. "You can take it that we're actively chasing all debts, including that one", Mr Kahn said.

The main stumbling block to the sale of Woolworths was the difficulty in raising the finances to restock the company, Mr Kahn said.

"What's clear to me is there are those who are interested and see a future for Woolworths on the high street and the challenge is the finance that's going to be required to stock up and get a new Woolworths going, rather than [questioning] is there a place on the high street for it", he said.

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