logo
Huge luxury retailer with more than 90 UK stores suddenly closes city shopping centre location

Huge luxury retailer with more than 90 UK stores suddenly closes city shopping centre location

Scottish Sun25-04-2025

Click to share on X/Twitter (Opens in new window)
Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
A LUXURY retailer has left locals gutted after they pulled the plug on one of its locations.
Jeweller and watch expert Goldsmiths shut up shop at its store inside The Broadway shopping centre in Bradford.
1
Goldsmiths has closed its store in Bradford's The Broadway shopping centre (stock image)
Credit: Google Review
Alerting customers of the closure, the company left a notice which read: 'Unfortunately, the Goldsmiths showroom has now closed.
'For any enquiries, please contact Goldsmiths White Rose on 0113 271 3125 or call our customer service team on 0800 085 8250 (Monday to Friday 10am-4pm).
"May we take this opportunity to thank you for your valued custom.'
Goldsmiths waved in punters for the first time at the Bradford shopping centre in November 2023.
Rising costs, a shift to online shopping and a dip in consumer confidence have all impacted retailers, with even established names shuttering sites.
Well-known brands such as Wilko and Paperchase have collapsed, while many others continue to scale back operations in a bid to reduce costs.
Homebase was sold out of administration and has seen many stores close.
While Boots is set to shut ten stores in the coming weeks as part of wider plans to reduce its UK portfolio by 300 sites.
Meanwhile JD Sports has confirmed it will shut down 50 stores next year.
The retailer, which has 4,850 stores across 36 countries, has not confirmed how many of the closures will be in the UK.
Huddersfield Station Closure: £70 Million Revamp Set to Transform Travel
Similarly, last month, Essential Vintage told followers on social that it would be closing down after they had been "priced out" because of bigger players in the market such as Vinted.
Red Menswear in Chatham in Medway, Kent, shut for the final time on Saturday, March 29, after selling men's clothing since 1999.
Shoezone, located on Devonshire Road, has confirmed it's final day of trading will be May 13.
And New Look bosses made the decision to axe nearly 100 branches as they battle challenges linked to Autumn Budget tax changes.
Approximately a quarter of the retailer's 364 stores are at risk when their leases expire.
This equates to about 91 stores, with a significant impact on New Look's 8,000-strong workforce.
It's understood the latest drive to accelerate closures is driven by the upcoming increase in National Insurance contributions for employers.
The move, announced by Chancellor Rachel Reeves in October, is expected to hit retailers hard - and the British Retail Consortium has predicted these changes will create a £2.3billion bill for the sector.

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Pensions report cuts Reeves' planned growth funds from £160bn to £11bn
Pensions report cuts Reeves' planned growth funds from £160bn to £11bn

The Guardian

timean hour ago

  • The Guardian

Pensions report cuts Reeves' planned growth funds from £160bn to £11bn

Plans to invest £160bn of surplus funds from final salary pension schemes to boost the UK economy over the next 10 years have been dealt a blow by a Whitehall assessment that found there was likely to be little more than £11bn available to spend. In a knock to Rachel Reeves's growth agenda, a report by civil servants at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) found that the expected surpluses in occupational schemes would be used by businesses to offload their pension liabilities to insurance companies. It could mean that as little as £8.4bn would be available for companies to invest in new equipment or technology, but the figure was likely to be nearer £11bn, the DWP said on Friday. 'It is estimated that an additional £11.2bn surplus will be extracted as a result of the preferred option to legislate over a 10-year period,' the report said. Pension surpluses were a significant pillar of the chancellor's plans to use private sector funds to grow the economy during a period when state funds are likely to be severely restricted. Reeves is expected to lay out her growth plans on Wednesday in the spending review, which will set out the government priorities for the next year. Earlier this year she said about 75% of final salary schemes, also known as defined benefit schemes, were in surplus, worth £160bn, but restrictions have meant businesses have struggled to invest them. In her Mansion House speech in November, Reeves also outlined proposals for pension megafunds to be created from individual defined contribution schemes and a merger of local authority pension schemes to make the pensions industry more cost-effective. A pensions bill going through parliament will allow pension fund trustees to unlock trapped surplus funds that Reeves said would increase investment in British businesses and lift economic growth. Hundreds of final salary schemes, which spent decades in deficit, meaning the value of their obligations to members outweighed their assets, have moved into surplus in recent years after an increase in interest rates. 'Although fewer than 700,000 people are actively saving into a private sector defined benefit scheme, the sector remains a significant market within the UK economic landscape,' the report said. 'Across around 5,000 schemes, around nine million members are being supported with assets of around £1.2tn.' An impact assessment by DWP officials said legislation was needed to overhaul the pension system and give trustees the power to access surplus funds. It said a failure to act would also mean 'an opportunity to benefit members, businesses and to drive economic growth would be missed. Therefore 'do nothing' is not considered a desirable option.' However, a combination of factors means the expected surplus for investment is reduced to no more than £12bn over 10 years, in part because the legislation does not force trustees of defined benefit funds to use surpluses for investment, and that most occupational final salary schemes have reached a level where a buyout is possible. In a note for the Pension Insurance Corporation, an independent expert, John Ralfe, said: 'Forget about £160bn of pension surpluses just waiting, as Rachel Reeves said, to be paid out to 'drive growth and boost working people's pension pots'. 'The DWP figures estimate just a fraction of this – under £12bn – will be paid out over the next 10 years, mainly because most companies want a full buyout with an insurance company. 'And the bill contains no details of how pensions will be protected if cash is withdrawn. Member security must be a priority with strict rules on repaying amounts if funding deteriorates,' he added. Many pension fund trustees are known to be concerned that allowing company boards access to surplus funds could leave their schemes vulnerable after a panic in financial markets. Without strong safeguards, giving businesses access to surplus pension funds could also make them more attractive targets for foreign takeovers. It is understood the new regime will allow trustees to block moves to access surplus funds if they believe it will undermine the safety of the fund. The pensions minister Torsten Bell said: 'I have read the impact assessment, and I am satisfied that, given the available evidence, it represents a reasonable view of the likely costs, benefits and impact of the leading options.' The Treasury and the DWP were contacted for comment.

The closing of a local hair salon tells you why Britain is going bust
The closing of a local hair salon tells you why Britain is going bust

Telegraph

timean hour ago

  • Telegraph

The closing of a local hair salon tells you why Britain is going bust

On Wednesday, Rachel Reeves will stand up in the House and announce her latest plans for saving the country from bankruptcy. Somehow, she will have to produce plausible remedies for a crisis that seems insoluble: how to deal with catastrophic levels of government debt when there are endless demands for more public spending including a brand new commitment to provide more funding for defence. Having ruled out tax rises that clearly impinge directly on what they call 'working people' – income tax, VAT and employee National Insurance contributions – Labour has made this situation more complicated. But, perversely, they have chosen to make it even worse by pushing many of the most productive contributors to the economy out of business. The Labour Government, by putting supposed ideological solidarity over economic reality, has created the perfect formula for the failure of precisely the business sector which contributes most to national vitality and growth. Let me offer an illustration in the hope that it might prove instructive to the present and any future Chancellor. A hairdressing salon that I know in a prosperous North London neighbourhood closed for good several weeks ago. It had been at its current location for over thirty years and was so popular that it often took days to get an appointment. After lockdown it recovered well with its loyal customers delighted to return. The emergence of the four day working week meant that Fridays became as busy as Saturdays and the salon was humming. So what went wrong? The owner was hit simultaneously by the increases in the minimum wage and employer NICS. Added to ever-increasing energy costs (exacerbated by green levies), this burden finally broke them. Even though they were a well-run thriving business, they could not survive. Sadly all of the junior staff and trainees were laid off. Given the economic climate now, they will struggle to find similar jobs anywhere else so they will not be paying any tax for the indefinite future and will almost certainly have to claim unemployment benefit: a double loss for the Treasury. The salon as a company has gone so it will no longer be paying corporation tax. The senior stylists who have carried on working privately are now self-employed which means they can, perfectly legitimately, claim all their work expenses against tax – so they will pay less income tax than they did under PAYE when they were employees. You get the picture. The net effect of the Government's measures has been to reduce the tax take for their own coffers and increase unemployment among people starting out in their working lives whose chances are further damaged by the ridiculous stipulation that they must have full rights to secure employment from the day they are hired. What happened to one hair salon might not seem all that significant to the nation's future. But this pattern is being repeated in small businesses – particularly the ones that provide employment to young people starting out in working life – in countless numbers. Retail shops, building services and hospitality outlets are cutting staff and failing to hire new recruits because the cost of employing them is back breaking. As a result, they are not expanding and developing their businesses as they might have – and so not contributing to the growth of the economy in the significant way that small businesses, with their inherent dynamism and industriousness, once did. Labour, in its supposed determination to support 'working people' has created a doom loop in which fewer people will be joining the workforce and the consequent reduction in tax revenue will make the government even less able to meet the limitless demands of the welfare system as well as pay off its debts. Needless to say, there have been some obvious winners in the Labour dynamic: public sector employees have had their mouths stuffed with gold not only because Labour is historically inclined to favour the unions which represent them but because they can threaten disruption on a scale that reduces any complaining chorus from the small business sector to an inconsequential squeak. But there is more to it than that, in ideological terms: business generally, and small business in particular, are seen as inherently self-interested enterprises. Because they have been created, developed and run by private individuals in the hope of making a profit, they must be morally suspect and less worthy of support than the services that the state funds and operates for the general good of society. Carry this to its logical conclusion and it becomes admirable to penalise people who want to profit from other people's need for their services in order to pay for the provision of services dispensed 'fairly' (and without profit) by the government. You know where this ends, don't you? The most innovative, resourceful, determined individuals who might have developed new ways of creating real wealth and employing more people in experimental ways have impossible demands put on them which threaten their survival or, at the very least, make their continued existence as difficult as possible. They are encumbered with inflexible employment conditions which might possibly be appropriate for huge public sector organisations but are death to experimental emerging enterprises. Their tax arrangements are made so horrendously complicated and difficult to master that expensive accountancy advice becomes essential. I know self-employed sole traders in the creative industries who would like to enlarge their practice but are terrified of crossing the income threshold that would require VAT registration which now involves coping with Making Tax Digital – a peculiarly sadistic form of monitoring which, as HMRC has just discovered in its attempt to introduce it in self-employed income tax, can be susceptible to cyber hacking. Yes indeed, create a business on your own and try to make it a success – just try. The Government, and its agents in HMRC who can't even be bothered to answer the phone, will make your life as difficult as possible. And the more obstacles they put in the way to prevent you from flourishing and expanding, the more virtuous they will feel even though you and the real wealth that you create are the only things that might have saved them.

NHS set for boost of up to £30bn as other budgets feel squeeze
NHS set for boost of up to £30bn as other budgets feel squeeze

The Independent

timean hour ago

  • The Independent

NHS set for boost of up to £30bn as other budgets feel squeeze

The NHS is expected to receive a funding boost of up to £30 billion in the spending review next week at the expense of other public services. The Department of Health is set to be handed a 2.8% annual increase in its day-to-day budget over a three-year period. The cash injection, which amounts to a rise of about £30 billion by 2028, or £17 billion in real terms, will see other areas including police and councils squeezed, The Times newspaper reported. Sir Keir Starmer has pledged to ensure that by the next election 92% of patients in England waiting for planned treatment are seen within 18 weeks of being referred. Latest NHS data suggests around 60% of people are currently seen in this time and figures released last month showed the overall number of patients on waiting lists had risen slightly from 6.24 million to 6.25 million. Chancellor Rachel Reeves has acknowledged that she had been forced to turn down requests for funding in a sign of the behind-the-scenes wrangling over her spending review. She insisted the blame for the tight economic situation lay with the Conservatives rather than her rigid rules on borrowing and spending. The Chancellor said despite a £190 billion increase in funding over the spending review period 'not every department will get everything that they want next week and I have had to say no to things that I want to do too'. On top of the increase in day-to-day spending, funded in part by the tax hikes Ms Reeves set out in her budget, looser borrowing rules will help support a £113 billion investment package. Economists have warned the Chancellor faces 'unavoidably' tough choices when she sets out departmental spending plans on June 11. The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) think tank said defence and the NHS will dominate the review, raising the prospect of cuts to other unprotected departments.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store