June 2025 shop closures
More shops are set to disappear from British high streets, after more than 13,000 closures last year.
From January to May, scores of shops shuttered, including those belonging to Morrisons to New Look and WH Smith.
Sadly, the trend is set to continue in June, with a number of businesses shutting for good in the coming weeks.
Here are the main shop closures in England, Scotland and Wales this month.
The discount high street chain plans to close nine shops this month. The following shops will shut:
Milford Haven, Pembrokeshire - June 26
Perth - June 28
Chester Le Street, County Durham - June 28
Arbroath, Angus - June 28
Kidwelly, Carmarthenshire - June 28
Pershore, Worcestershire - June 28
Normanton, West Yorkshire - June 28
Peterhead, Aberdeenshire - June 28
Shaftesbury, Dorset - June 28
The retailer previously said it would have to close 'loss-making' stores following financial struggle. In February, private equity firm Modella Capital bought The Original Factory Shop, launching a restructuring effort to renegotiate rent costs at the 88 stores.
Modella Capital also bought WH Smith and Hobbycraft.
The bargain store chain is set to shut an outlet this month, with a further 200 shops at risk. A shop in Surrey Quays is set to close on June 11.
Pepco Group, the parent firm of Poundland, has said it expects to sell the chain by the end of September. In May, the Telegraph reported that up to 200 Poundland stores could face closure as part of a rescue sale.
Stephan Borchert, chief executive of Pepco, said: 'At Poundland, trading remains challenging, which is reflected in a profit outturn below expectations for H1 and a weaker outlook for the full year.'
Poundland revenues dropped by 6.5 per cent to 985 million euros (£830 million) for the six months to March, compared with a year earlier.
The multinational chain is closing an Inverness store this month. The company has put up signs inside the shop, reading: 'We're sorry this store is closing soon but you can still shop at hollandandbarrett.com.'
Holland and Barrett has not officially confirmed the closure.
The frozen supermarket giant will shut a store in College Square, Margate, on June 21.
Iceland has not provided a reason for the closure, however, the retailer confirmed that staff affected by the closure will be offered jobs within the business.
The department store is closing for good this month, following 120 years of sales. The final day of trading will be June 8.
Until then, the retailer is running a huge clearance sale, with up to 50 per cent cuts on beds, furniture, homeware and clothes.
Rising costs and declining high street shopping in the UK has contributed to the retailer's demise.
The Windsor flagship shop will stay open, as well as its online business.
Five employees will be impacted by the closure, Daniel of Ealing said.
The discount retail chain is closing a store on Margate High Street on June 8.
A spokesperson for The Works said: 'As part of ongoing plans to optimise our store portfolio, we will be closing our Margate store.
'We have loved being part of the local community and apologise for any inconvenience caused by this closure.
'Customers can continue to shop with us at our nearby stores at Westwood Cross Shopping Centre and Ramsgate Garden Centre.'
Five other The Works shops have closed this year due to underperformance.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Engadget
an hour ago
- Engadget
It turns out you can train AI models without copyrighted material
AI companies claim their tools couldn't exist without training on copyrighted material. It turns out, they could — it's just really hard. To prove it, AI researchers trained a new model that's less powerful but much more ethical. That's because the LLM's dataset uses only public domain and openly licensed material. The paper (via The Washington Post ) was a collaboration between 14 different institutions. The authors represent universities like MIT, Carnegie Mellon and the University of Toronto. Nonprofits like Vector Institute and the Allen Institute for AI also contributed. The group built an 8 TB ethically-sourced dataset. Among the data was a set of 130,000 books in the Library of Congress. After inputting the material, they trained a seven-billion-parameter large language model (LLM) on that data. The result? It performed about as well as Meta's similarly sized Llama 2-7B from 2023. The team didn't publish benchmarks comparing its results to today's top models. Performance comparable to a two-year-old model wasn't the only downside. The process of putting it all together was also a grind. Much of the data couldn't be read by machines, so humans had to sift through it. "We use automated tools, but all of our stuff was manually annotated at the end of the day and checked by people," co-author Stella Biderman told WaPo . "And that's just really hard." Figuring out the legal details also made the process hard. The team had to determine which license applied to each website they scanned. So, what do you do with a less powerful LLM that's much harder to train? If nothing else, it can serve as a counterpoint. In 2024, OpenAI told a British parliamentary committee that such a model essentially couldn't exist. The company claimed it would be "impossible to train today's leading AI models without using copyrighted materials." Last year, an Anthropic expert witness added, "LLMs would likely not exist if AI firms were required to license the works in their training datasets." Of course, this study won't change the trajectory of AI companies. After all, more work to create less powerful tools doesn't jive with their interests. But at least it punctures one of the industry's common arguments. Don't be surprised if you hear about this study again in legal cases and regulation arguments.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Ormat Technologies Announces Strategic Leadership Changes
ORMAT EXPANDS MANAGEMENT TEAM TO SUPPORT ELECTRICITY SEGMENT GROWTH AND EGS INITIATIVES ARON WILLIS APPOINTED EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, ELECTRICITY SEGMENT DANIEL MOELK APPOINTED SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, RESOURCES, DRILLING, & EGS RENO, Nev., June 05, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Ormat Technologies, Inc. (NYSE: ORA) (the 'Company' or 'Ormat'), a leading geothermal and renewable energy company, is pleased to announce the appointment of two distinguished executives to its senior management team. These strategic appointments are poised to propel the next phase of the Company's growth and enhance its operational excellence within the renewable energy sector. Aron Willis Appointed Executive Vice President, Electricity Segment Effective June 4, 2025, Aron Willis will assume the role of Executive Vice President, Electricity Segment at Ormat Technologies. In this capacity Aron will oversee the operations of the Electricity Segment, ensuring alignment with the Company's strategic goals and financial targets. Aron will also be responsible for optimizing plant performance, implementing advanced AI tools, ensuring compliance with safety and environmental regulations, and driving continuous improvement initiatives to foster future growth. Aron brings over 25 years of extensive experience in the power generation industry, with a proven track record of leadership and financial and operational expertise. His career includes significant roles at TransAlta Corporation and Northwest Digital Power, where he demonstrated exceptional leadership in managing large-scale operations and driving substantial growth initiatives. At TransAlta Corporation, Aron held several senior leadership positions, including Executive Vice President of Project Delivery & Construction, Executive Vice President of Growth and Senior Vice President of Operations & Commercial Management. He also managed TransAlta's Australian operations for 10 years, comprising approximately 500MW of generating capacity. Aron holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree with a major in Finance from the University of Calgary. Daniel Moelk Appointed Senior Vice President, Resources, Drilling & EGS In July 2025, Daniel Moelk will join Ormat as Senior Vice President, Resources, Drilling & EGS. Daniel will lead our Resources, Drilling, and EGS teams with a focus on implementing sophisticated processes and innovative technologies. His work will focus in part on creating efficiencies through the use and advanced AI tools and developing Ormat's ongoing drilling and exploration global roadmap. Daniel brings nearly 18 years of valuable operations and drilling management experience within the geothermal industry. Most recently, Daniel served as the EVP of European Operations for Eavor Technologies Inc, a company focused on EGS development where he successfully executed some of the industry's most challenging and complex drilling campaigns. Daniel has played pivotal roles in expanding geothermal drilling operations across his career, in particular at Steag GMBH, PT Sejahtera Alam Energy while he was located in Indonesia, Daldrup & Sohne AG, Mannvit Engineering Consultants, and Iceland Drilling Inc. Daniel holds a degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Iceland. 'We are thrilled to welcome Aron Willis and Daniel Moelk to Ormat's leadership team, where their valued backgrounds and experience will help drive the next phase of development and growth for our leading geothermal operations,' said Doron Blachar, Chief Executive Officer of Ormat Technologies. 'Their extensive experience and proven track records in the power generation and geothermal industries will be invaluable as we continue to support our growth through continued innovation. These appointments reflect our commitment to strengthening our leadership team, advancing our strategic objectives for generation growth, expanding our profitability, and focusing efforts on EGS development. I am confident that Aron and Daniel, both of whom will report directly to me, will play pivotal roles in our ongoing success.' Blachar continued, 'I also want to extend my sincere gratitude to Shimon Hatzir for his long-standing service to the Company and his exceptional leadership and dedication over the past 36 years. Shimon has made significant contributions to Ormat in various capacities, including leading our R&D and engineering division, leading wide range of technology developments, and managing the design of numerous power plants. He also led our energy storage segment, and most recently, heading the Electricity Segment including the Resource and Drilling operations I wish him all the best in his well-deserved retirement.' ABOUT ORMAT TECHNOLOGIES With six decades of experience, Ormat Technologies, Inc. is a leading geothermal company, and the only vertically integrated company engaged in geothermal and recovered energy generation ('REG'), with robust plans to accelerate long-term growth in the energy storage market and to establish a leading position in the U.S. energy storage market. The Company owns, operates, designs, manufactures and sells geothermal and REG power plants primarily based on the Ormat Energy Converter – a power generation unit that converts low-, medium- and high-temperature heat into electricity. The Company has engineered, manufactured and constructed power plants, which it currently owns or has installed for utilities and developers worldwide, totaling approximately 3,400MW of gross capacity. Ormat leveraged its core capabilities in the geothermal and REG industries and its global presence to expand the Company's activity into energy storage services, solar Photovoltaic (PV) and energy storage plus Solar PV. Ormat's current total generating portfolio is 1,538MW with a 1,248MW geothermal and solar generation portfolio that is spread globally in the U.S., Kenya, Guatemala, Indonesia, Honduras, and Guadeloupe, and a 290MW energy storage portfolio that is located in the U.S. ORMAT'S SAFE HARBOR STATEMENT Information provided in this press release may contain statements relating to current expectations, estimates, forecasts and projections about future events that are "forward-looking statements" as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements, other than statements of historical facts, included in this press release that address activities, events or developments that we expect or anticipate will or may occur in the future, including such matters as our projections of annual revenues, expenses and debt service coverage with respect to our debt securities, future capital expenditures, business strategy, competitive strengths, goals, development or operation of generation assets, market and industry developments and the growth of our business and operations, are forward-looking statements. When used in this press release, the words 'may', 'will', 'could', 'should', 'expects', 'plans', 'anticipates', 'believes', 'estimates', 'predicts', 'projects', 'potential', or 'contemplate' or the negative of these terms or other comparable terminology are intended to identify forward-looking statements, although not all forward-looking statements contain such words or expressions. These forward-looking statements generally relate to Ormat's plans, objectives and expectations for future operations and are based upon its management's current estimates and projections of future results or trends. Although we believe that our plans and objectives reflected in or suggested by these forward-looking statements are reasonable, we may not achieve these plans or objectives. Actual future results may differ materially from those projected as a result of certain risks and uncertainties and other risks described under "Risk Factors" as described in Ormat's annual report on Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission ('SEC') on February 27, 2025, and in Ormat's subsequent quarterly reports on Form 10-Q that are filed from time to time with the SEC. These forward-looking statements are made only as of the date hereof, and, except as legally required, we undertake no obligation to update or revise the forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Ormat Technologies Contact:Smadar LaviVP Head of IR and ESG Planning & Reporting 775-356-9029 (ext. 65726)slavi@ Investor Relations Agency Contact:Joseph Caminiti or Josh CarrollAlpha IR Group312-445-2870ORA@ in to access your portfolio
San Francisco Chronicle
2 hours ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Which Bay Area restaurants landed on the World's 50 Best list?
Two of the Bay Area's most decorated restaurants, SingleThread and Atelier Crenn, have landed on a global stage once again. Influential restaurant ranking group World's 50 Best Restaurants included the fine dining institutions on its extended list of restaurants, from 51 through 100, which includes 37 cities around the globe. Atelier Crenn in San Francisco placed at No. 96, while Healdsburg's SingleThread was named No. 80. 'We are grateful when our name appears, a sign that our labor is seen,our flame recognized,' Atelier Crenn executive chef and owner Dominique Crenn wrote on Instagram. The restaurant has appeared on the main 50 best list, at no. 48, as recently as 2021, but fell off the list completely last year; SingleThread, meanwhile, fell from its place last year at No. 37. Past Bay Area honorees on World's Best 50 Restaurants' main list include Saison, Benu and the French Laundry, which has been inducted into the organization's 'Best of the Best' hall of fame after being placed in the No. 1 spot. The World's 50 Best Restaurants, published by the British media company William Reed, put out its first rankings of top fine dining destinations in 2002. The group has been criticized in the past for a lack of diversity in its organization, not requiring members to pay for their meals, as well as uneven gender and geographic representation in past lists. The main list, which will rank restaurants from 50 to No. 1, will be revealed in Turin, Italy on June 19.
