DRY cleaning chain Johnson is consulting with staff after announcing that more than a third of its branches would close.

The company has not revealed which branches are among the 109 that will shut.

It has branches in Haven Road, Canford Cliffs; Lower Blandford Road, Broadstone; Wimborne High Street; and Station Road, New Milton, as well as a presence in Waitrose stores at Parkstone, Ringwood and Lymington.

The company is shifting away from traditional high street locations towards collection and delivery points at supermarkets.

It has not been revealed how many jobs will go but a typical store employs four people. Johnson, which closed more than 100 branches in 2012, said the dry cleaning business failed to grow sales year despite several initiatives to reach new customers.

It established collection and delivery points in offices with a high concentration of staff and has a presence at 78 Waitrose branches nationwide, with another 46 locations to open in the early part of this year.

A statement said: “Dry cleaning continues to operate in a difficult high street environment and despite several initiatives to reach new customers, the like-for-like sales increase we achieved in 2013 has not been maintained in 2014. “Notwithstanding this we anticipate the result for 2014 to be in line with expectations.”

It added: “In parallel with these new initiatives we have reviewed the lease profile of our current 307 branches and have identified 109 branches, the majority of which have leases expiring within the next two years, where renewal will not be financially viable. “We are commencing a consultation exercise with affected employees and anticipate that branches will close during the first half of the year.

“The remaining 198 better performing premium branches are in more convenient locations with an infrastructure capable of receiving dry cleaning from various collection and delivery points.”

The company expects its planned restructuring to cost it £6.5m.