Big chain with over 200 shops to close branch within hours after big sale
A HUGE chain with more than 200 stores is set to close a popular branch within hours after its big sale.
Warren James announced that its shop on the Andover outlet in the Chantry Centre will close for good tomorrow.
1
The closure is reportedly due to the branch's lease expiring.
However, the chain has yet to explain why the popular store is closing down.
Despite the closure announcement, shoppers were given one last chance to bag a bargain sparkle.
Local council bosses have revealed that they're already looking to re-let the space.
A spokesperson for Test Valley Borough Council, which owns and runs the shopping centre, admitted it was 'a shame' to see Warren James go, but insisted new tenants are always in the pipeline.
They added that the centre has remained lively thanks to flexible leases, grants for independents and a mix of tenants keeping vacancy rates below the national average.
Struggling with rising costs and reduced footfall over the past few years.
Dozens of shops are set to close across the country before the end of the month in the latest blow to UK high streets.
One of these includes Smiggle, known for its colourful, quirky pens, lunchboxes and school bags, which revealed it is shutting up shop at the Darwin Centre in Shrewsbury.
Why are shops closing stores?
Meanwhile, family business B.D Price, a beloved toy and bike store in Dudley, West Midlands, announced its closure after 160 years.
Rising living costs, leaving shoppers with less cash to spend, and an increase in online shopping have battered retailers in recent years.
In some cases, landlords are either unwilling or unable to invest in keeping shops open, further speeding up the closures.
It comes after a huge fashion store with 250 branches across the UK is closing another branch.
And a popular dessert chain with 30 locations has been forced to close shop after just six months.
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."
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Telegraph
13 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Live Economy shrinks in blow for Reeves
Britain's economy shrank at the start of the second quarter, official figures show, in a blow for the Chancellor after her spending review. UK gross domestic product (GDP) contracted by 0.3pc during the month, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS). This was worse than analysts' fears that the economy would shrink by 0.1pc and follows a 0.7pc expansion during the first three months of the year. The data covers the month when Donald Trump launched his so-called 'liberation day' tariff onslaught which threatened to upend global trade. ONS director of economic statistics Liz McKeown said: 'After increasing for each of the four preceding months, April saw the largest monthly fall on record in goods exports to the United States with decreases seen across most types of goods, following the recent introduction of tariffs.' The figures come a day after economists warned that Britain faces tax rises in the autumn after Rachel Reeves unveiled her spending review. The Chancellor has made growing the economy one of her key missions as she battles to shore up the public finances. An expanding economy would mean that she is better able to pay off the nation's debt and would improve living standards. Ms Reeves said: 'Our number one mission is delivering growth to put more money in people's pockets through our Plan for Change, and while these numbers are clearly disappointing, I'm determined to deliver on that mission.'
The Independent
18 minutes ago
- The Independent
Britain morphing into ‘National Health State', says think tank
Britain is turning into a 'National Health State', a think tank has said after the Chancellor gave the NHS a major funding boost in her spending review. The health service was the big winner of Wednesday's spending review, receiving an extra £29 billion per year for day-to-day spending and more cash for capital investment. Overnight, the Resolution Foundation said Rachel Reeves's announcements had followed a recent trend that saw increases for the NHS come at the expense of other public services. Ruth Curtice, chief executive of the Resolution Foundation, said: 'Health accounted for 90% of the extra public service spending, continuing a trend that is seeing the British state morph into a National Health State, with half of public service spending set to be on health by the end of the decade.' Defence was another of Wednesday's winners, Ms Curtice said, receiving a significant increase in capital spending while other departments saw an overall £3.6 billion real-terms cut in investment. The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) made similar arguments about 'substantial' investment in the NHS and defence coming at the expense of other departments, although the think tank's director Paul Johnson warned the money may not be enough. He said: 'Aiming to get back to meeting the NHS 18-week target for hospital waiting times within this Parliament is enormously ambitious – an NHS funding settlement below the long-run average might not measure up. 'And on defence, it's entirely possible that an increase in the Nato spending target will mean that maintaining defence spending at 2.6% of GDP no longer cuts the mustard.' Ms Curtice added that low and middle-income families had also done well out of the spending review 'after two rounds of painful tax rises and welfare cuts', with the poorest fifth of families benefiting from an average of £1,700 in extra spending on schools, hospitals and the police. She warned that, without economic growth, another round of tax rises was likely to come in the autumn as the Chancellor seeks to balance the books. She said: 'The extra money in this spending review has already been accounted for in the last forecast. 'But a weaker economic outlook and the unfunded changes to winter fuel payments mean the Chancellor will likely need to look again at tax rises in the autumn.' Speaking after delivering her spending review, Ms Reeves insisted she would not have to raise taxes to cover her spending review. She told GB News: 'Every penny of this is funded through the tax increases and the changes to the fiscal rules that we set out last autumn.'
Daily Mail
21 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
BREAKING NEWS Rachel Reeves' spending splurge plans are ALREADY in chaos after GDP fell 0.3% in April - fuelling fears she WILL have to hike taxes
' spending plans have already been thrown into chaos today after figures showed the economy tumbling into the red. GDP was down 0.3 per cent in April, worse than analysts had expected, and raising more questions about the realism of the Chancellor's splurge on services. Although UK plc has still grown over the past three months, evidence has been mounting of a slowdown. Ms Reeves admitted the data - which coincide with the huge national insurance tax raid on businesses taking effect - were 'disappointing'. ONS Director of Economic Statistics Liz McKeown said: 'The economy contracted in April, with services and manufacturing both falling. However, over the last three months as a whole GDP still grew, with signs that some activity may have been brought forward from April to earlier in the year. 'Both legal and real estate firms fared badly in April, following a sharp increase in house sales in March when buyers rushed to complete purchases ahead of changes to Stamp Duty. Car manufacturing also performed poorly after growing in the first quarter of the year. 'In contrast April was a strong month for construction, research and development and retail, with increases in these only partially offsetting falls elsewhere. 'After increasing for each of the four preceding months, April saw the largest monthly fall on record in goods exports to the United States with decreases seen across most types of goods, following the recent introduction of tariffs.' In the Spending Review yesterday, Ms Reeves set out plans to 'invest' a staggering £4trillion to fund 'the renewal of Britain'. She said the plans, which include another huge dollop of cash for the NHS, would end the 'destructive' austerity of the last government and boost economic growth. Labour strategists hope the costly gamble will pay off by cutting hospital waiting lists, improving the creaking infrastructure and pump-priming the economy. But experts warned the scale of the spending, coupled with the deteriorating public finances, would force another round of damaging tax rises this autumn. The Conservatives accused Ms Reeves of adopting a reckless 'spend now, tax later' approach. The Chancellor insisted her plans could be funded by the eye-watering tax rises she imposed last year. She refused to rule out tax rises this autumn, saying only that taxes 'won't have to go up to pay for what's in this Spending Review'. But the small print of yesterday's Treasury document already includes one significant new tax hike, with the Chancellor pencilling in council tax hikes that will add more than £350 to an average Band D bill by 2029 to help fund local services and the police. Asked to rule out further tax rises, Treasury minister Emma Reynolds said: 'I'm not ruling it in, I'm not ruling it out.'
