Poundland to shut shopping centre store in just DAYS as ‘greedy landlords' blamed for ghost town high street

The Sun

04-05-2025

POUNDLAND is set to shut a shopping centre store in just a few days - as "greedy landlords" are blamed.
The 35-year-old chain has been forced to close a string of its branches in recent months - which currently stand at just over 800 nationwide.
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The latest store to join the list is a branch in Liverpool 's Belle Vale Shopping Centre - with a closing date of May 6.
A post shared on the Belle Vale and Netherley Facebook group read: "Another shop closing down.
"Good luck to the staff and hope they find another job soon."
The post was flooded with comments from furious shoppers, with one blaming "greedy landlords" for the decline of businesses in the area.
"There won't be anything left poor staff," they added.
Another wrote: "Its wrong some of the workers in there have been loyal workers in there for years.
"Bellevale owners don't give a (monkeys) about the shops or the community.
"They're greedy and either want ridiculous rent and contracts or they want to force people out so they can flatten it."
A spokesman for Poundland confirmed that the company had been served notice on the lease.
He said: "We know how disappointing this will be to customers and colleagues.
"Whenever we have to close a store in these circumstances, we do all we can to look for other opportunities for colleagues and that work is now underway.
"We'd like to thank customers at Belle Vale for their support – and look forward to welcoming them at our other stores across Merseyside."
It comes just days after another Poundland in Clapham Junction station, south London, also shut its doors.
A spokesperson confirmed to The Sun: "We know how disappointing our closure at Clapham Junction will be to customers.
"We look forward to welcoming them to our store nearby at the Southside Shopping Centre in Wandsworth."
Meanwhile, locals in Gateshead, Kent, will say goodbye to a Poundland branch inside the St George's Centre this Wednesday (May 8).
And another store in Brackla, Wales, will follow suit on May 24.
RETAIL PAIN IN 2025
The British Retail Consortium has predicted that the Treasury's hike to employer NICs will cost the retail sector £2.3billion.
Research by the British Chambers of Commerce shows that more than half of companies plan to raise prices by early April.
A survey of more than 4,800 firms found that 55% expect prices to increase in the next three months, up from 39% in a similar poll conducted in the latter half of 2024.
Three-quarters of companies cited the cost of employing people as their primary financial pressure.
The Centre for Retail Research (CRR) has also warned that around 17,350 retail sites are expected to shut down this year.
It comes on the back of a tough 2024 when 13,000 shops closed their doors for good, already a 28% increase on the previous year.
Professor Joshua Bamfield, director of the CRR said: "The results for 2024 show that although the outcomes for store closures overall were not as poor as in either 2020 or 2022, they are still disconcerting, with worse set to come in 2025."
Professor Bamfield has also warned of a bleak outlook for 2025, predicting that as many as 202,000 jobs could be lost in the sector.
"By increasing both the costs of running stores and the costs on each consumer's household it is highly likely that we will see retail job losses eclipse the height of the pandemic in 2020."