Latest news with #Stockport
The Sun
9 hours ago
- Business
- The Sun
IKEA announces sudden closure of UK store that opened just two years ago after customer backlash
IKEA has announced it is closing down a UK store it opened just two years ago following a backlash from customers. The famous Swedish homewares retailer has confirmed the Plan and Order point at the Stockport Merseyway Shopping Centre will cease in just a fortnight's time on June 16. The store in Greater Manchester is a smaller outlet than its usual out-of-town locations and is focused on kitchen, bedroom and living room planning. The aim was to provide somewhere for customers to go to get advice and expertise on home furnishing and somewhere where they could design their ideal fittings and get individual 3D interior plans from the interior designers. According to IKEA, the decision to close the store permanently was made due to 'a result of valuable learnings' where the company recognised their customers wanted a different retail experience, more along the lines of Click and Collect and return services. While the Stockport branch will close for good, other Plan and Order points, such as the ones in Dundee, York and Hull, will be adapted to meet those new demands and also include a small range of home furnishing accessories to buy. The current Stockport customers are now being directed to the next nearest main IKEA store, the branch in Ashton-under-Lyne in Tameside. Locals can also now pick up their IKEA purchases from Tesco Extra in Stockport and the Tesco Extra in Stretford as part of Click and Collect. Salma Azad, IKEA area manager said: 'After careful evaluation, we've made the difficult decision to close the IKEA Plan and Order Point at Merseyway Shopping Centre. 'In the two years since opening, we've taken valuable learnings, including how our customers prefer to meet IKEA, and we'll take these insights into future openings, to serve shoppers in a more impactful way. 'I want to sincerely thank all of the customers that have shopped with us in this time. IKEA Manchester, a store locals know and love, will continue to be the closest hub for home planning, meatballs and everything in between.' Bosses had hoped the Plan and Order in Stockport would 'become more accessible and sustainable for customers in the north west'. I did a haul of the new Oxford Street Ikea whilst on my lunch break & I managed to kit out with bargains under £3 However, it did come under criticism from some shoppers. In a Facebook post about the closure, one person wrote: 'I'm not surprised to be honest. It is very small.' While a second added: 'It wasn't the right shop for that place, they'd have been better off setting up an IKEA homeware and food shop there!' A third critic said: 'Really don't know why it opened in the first place. Pointless.' The news comes after IKEA opened its own hotel in the Canary Islands. The location offers cheap rooms, a swimming pool and breakfast is included while also offering some of their most popular homeware items. Why are retailers closing stores? RETAILERS have been feeling the squeeze since the pandemic, while shoppers are cutting back on spending due to the soaring cost of living crisis. High energy costs and a move to shopping online after the pandemic are also taking a toll, and many high street shops have struggled to keep going. However, additional costs have added further pain to an already struggling sector. The British Retail Consortium has predicted that the Treasury's hike to employer NICs from April will cost the retail sector £2.3billion. At the same time, the minimum wage will rise to £12.21 an hour from April, and the minimum wage for people aged 18-20 will rise to £10 an hour, an increase of £1.40. 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." It comes after almost 170,000 retail workers lost their jobs in 2024. End-of-year figures compiled by the Centre for Retail Research showed the number of job losses spiked amid the collapse of major chains such as Homebase and Ted Baker. It said its latest analysis showed that a total of 169,395 retail jobs were lost in the 2024 calendar year to date. This was up 49,990 – an increase of 41.9% – compared with 2023. It is the highest annual reading since more than 200,000 jobs were lost in 2020 in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced retailers to shut their stores during lockdowns. The centre said 38 major retailers went into administration in 2024, including household names such as Lloyds Pharmacy, Homebase, The Body Shop, Carpetright and Ted Baker. Around a third of all retail job losses in 2024, 33% or 55,914 in total, resulted from administrations. Experts have said small high street shops could face a particularly challenging 2025 because of Budget tax and wage changes. Professor Bamfield has 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."
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
Pedestrian, 89, seriously injured in hit-and-run
An 89-year-old man has been seriously injured after a car driver hit him and then fled, police have said. He was walking in Bramhall Lane, Stockport, when the collision happened at about 14:00 BST, Greater Manchester Police said. An air ambulance crew attended and the man was taken to hospital with serious injuries. A 35-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of causing serious injury by dangerous driving and failure to stop. He remains in police custody. Listen to the best of BBC Radio Manchester on Sounds and follow BBC Manchester on Facebook, X, and Instagram and watch BBC North West Tonight on BBC iPlayer.
BBC News
3 days ago
- General
- BBC News
Stockport crash: Pedestrian, 89, seriously injured in hit-and-run
An 89-year-old man has been seriously injured after a car driver hit him and then fled, police have was walking in Bramhall Lane, Stockport, when the collision happened at about 14:00 BST, Greater Manchester Police air ambulance crew attended and the man was taken to hospital with serious injuries.A 35-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of causing serious injury by dangerous driving and failure to stop. He remains in police custody. Listen to the best of BBC Radio Manchester on Sounds and follow BBC Manchester on Facebook, X, and Instagram and watch BBC North West Tonight on BBC iPlayer.
The Sun
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Sun
‘There are so many in the making' – Nathan Aspinall reveals there's an army of Luke Littlers ready to take over darts
NATHAN ASPINALL reckons darts has boomed so much these past two years that 'footballers and actors' are all obsessed with what is happening on the oche. But he claims the next generation of tungsten throwers will be groomed in sports academies rather than unearthed on building sites. 4 4 4 The 17-week Premier League Darts reached its climax last Thursday night with Luke Humphries beating Luke Littler in the O2 Arena final. Two days before that, Prem semi-finalist Aspinall was a guest at Tottenham playmaker James Maddison's golf day at The Centurion Club with darts pal Joe Cullen. The annual invitational golf tournament – which raises funds for different causes – was attended by ex-footballers John Terry, Jimmy Bullard, Wes Morgan, Gareth Barry and comedian Michael McIntyre. And Aspinall – a two-time major winner – claims everybody was talking to him about Littler and Co. Stockport's world No.9 said: 'Everyone is obsessed with darts. I was at this golf day and everyone wanted to talk to me about the darts. 'I'm looking around, all these footballers and actors and stuff. Everyone was speaking to me. 'Everyone loves darts. Whatever you're a celebrity, own a company, from a council estate. Whether you're a kid. A woman. A Man. 'We all know we owe a lot of it to Luke. But also the rest of the guys that turn out week-in, week-out. 'Oh my god, John Terry shot four under gross. And he plays off five. 'Joe Cullen played as well. He was a bit worse for wear the next morning, shall we say. Luke Humphries apologises to fans after hilarious nine-darter fail leaves even rival Nathan Aspinall laughing 'Humphries was asked to play in it but he didn't want to risk injuring himself before the finals. Whereas I couldn't give a s***.' Littler emerged on the senior scene in December 2023 aged 16 and raced all the way to the World Darts final where he lost to Humphries. A year later, he went one step further and lifted the Sid Waddell Trophy at the age of 17. It is a far cry from previous world champions like Phil Taylor (ceramic factory), Gary Anderson (grate builder), Peter Wright (tyre fitter) and Rob Cross (electrician) who had other jobs before throwing darts. Yet Aspinall – who runs a darts academy in the North West – reckons there is an army of wannabe Littler s set to appear in the coming years. Aspinall, a father of two, said: 'There are so many more Luke Littlers in the making at the moment. It's mental. 'I might be 33 but I'm an old boy compared to what's coming through. 'If the money gets to like golf levels, there's no way people are doing this for 25 years. 'Guys in their early to mid-30s are the last of a generation and after us it's going to be all these kids coming through, who're fearless. 'Then it will go from this pub game, which everyone still calls it, even though it is not. And it will finally be called a sport in 5-10 years. 'But the problem you're going to have is: Where are the characters? 'You see it with footballers when they do their interviews, they are robots. They get told what to say. And they are all the same answers all the time. 'I think people like myself, I just say it as it is. It gets me in trouble a lot of time. I've had no media training in my career. 'I was thrown into the deep end. I don't want darts to get that to level. Because you do need those characters in the game. 'If everyone turns up and they are all the same, they all throw the same, no-one celebrates, does the interviews the same, it would get boring. Hopefully that doesn't happen.'
The Irish Sun
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Irish Sun
‘There are so many in the making' – Nathan Aspinall reveals there's an army of Luke Littlers ready to take over darts
NATHAN ASPINALL reckons darts has boomed so much these past two years that 'footballers and actors' are all obsessed with what is happening on the oche. But he claims the next generation of tungsten throwers will be groomed in sports academies rather than unearthed on building sites. 4 Nathan Aspinall believes there's an army of Luke Littlers ready to take over darts 4 Aspinall was part of the celebrity cohort invited to James Maddison's golf invitational 4 The darts ace said everyone was talking darts on the golf meet The 17-week Premier League Darts reached its climax last Thursday night with Luke Humphries beating Luke Littler in the O2 Arena final. Two days before that, Prem semi-finalist Aspinall was a guest at Tottenham playmaker James Maddison's golf day at The Centurion Club with darts pal Joe Cullen. The annual invitational golf tournament – which raises funds for different causes – was attended by ex-footballers John Terry, Jimmy Bullard, Wes Morgan, Gareth Barry and comedian Michael McIntyre. And Aspinall – a two-time major winner – claims everybody was talking to him about Littler and Co. READ MORE DARTS Stockport's world No.9 said: 'Everyone is obsessed with darts . I was at this golf day and everyone wanted to talk to me about the darts . 'I'm looking around, all these footballers and actors and stuff. Everyone was speaking to me. 'Everyone loves darts . Whatever you're a celebrity , own a company, from a council estate. Whether you're a kid. A woman. A Man. 'We all know we owe a lot of it to Luke. But also the rest of the guys that turn out week-in, week-out. Most read in Darts CASINO SPECIAL - BEST CASINO BONUSES FROM £10 DEPOSITS 'Oh my god, John Terry shot four under gross. And he plays off five. 'Joe Cullen played as well. He was a bit worse for wear the next morning, shall we say. Luke Humphries apologises to fans after hilarious nine-darter fail leaves even rival Nathan Aspinall laughing 'Humphries was asked to play in it but he didn't want to risk injuring himself before the finals. Whereas I couldn't give a s***.' Littler emerged on the senior scene in December 2023 aged 16 and raced all the way to the World Darts final where he lost to Humphries. A year later, he went one step further and lifted the Sid Waddell Trophy at the age of 17. It is a far cry from previous world champions like Phil Taylor (ceramic factory), Gary Anderson (grate builder), jobs before throwing darts. Yet Aspinall – who runs a darts academy in the army of wannabe Littlers set to appear in the coming years. 4 Luke Humphries beat Littler in the Premier League Darts final on Thursday Credit: PA Aspinall, a father of two, said: 'There are so many more Luke Littlers in the making at the moment. It's mental. 'I might be 33 but I'm an old boy compared to what's coming through. 'If the money gets to like golf levels, there's no way people are doing this for 25 years. 'Guys in their early to mid-30s are the last of a generation and after us it's going to be all these kids coming through, who're fearless. 'Then it will go from this pub game, which everyone still calls it, even though it is not. And it will finally be called a sport in 5-10 years. 'But the problem you're going to have is: Where are the characters? 'You see it with footballers when they do their interviews , they are robots . They get told what to say. And they are all the same answers all the time. 'I think people like myself, I just say it as it is. It gets me in trouble a lot of time. I've had no media training in my career. 'I was thrown into the deep end. I don't want darts to get that to level. Because you do need those characters in the game. 'If everyone turns up and they are all the same, they all throw the same, no-one celebrates, does the interviews the same, it would get boring. Hopefully that doesn't happen.'
