PROTESTERS plan to dress in white coats and nurses’ uniforms in a rally outside a Colchester store.

Campaign group, Colchester Against the Cuts, is to protest outside Boots, in Lion Walk, on February 12.

The group claims the firm is depriving UK taxpayers of £150million by registering its headquarters in Switzerland, where taxes are far lower.

It follows dozens of similar demonstrations elsewhere in the UK in recent weeks.

In London police used CS spray when protesters staged a sit-in at Boots in Oxford Street last weekend.

Five people were arrested in Lewes, East Sussex, when protesters blocked the entrance to the town’s branch of Boots and in Brighton about 20 people targeted a branch of the company and were removed by security staff.

Jean Quinn, a campaign group spokesman, said: “We want to highlight the fact this money could have almost funded a new hospital.”

Essi Linderborg, a spokesman for Boots, said: “We decided to establish this new holding company in Switzerland because in the longer term we believe it will better reflect the increasingly international nature of our wider group.”

She said the firm had invested in the Boots business in the UK and was paying increased business rates.

She added: “We have also increased employment in our stores and made larger National Insurance contributions as a result.”