will close a dozen of its branches over the coming weeks, with the majority of shops impacted in the North East of England. The closures are the latest in a string of high street casualties, as consumers increasingly shop online and businesses face rising costs.
Fashion retailer will close a dozen of its branches over the coming weeks, with the majority of shops impacted in the North East. The locations shutting include sites across Peterlee, Southshields and Ashington and follow several closures by the branch last year, The Sun can reveal. It comes after the British fashion brand - owned by Turkish entrepreneur Cafer Mahiroğlu - fell into administration in 2019.
At the time, the retailer blamed tough conditions on the high street and was later bought out of administration by Genus UK Limited.Documents, seen by The Sun, detail how personnel were told a total of 12 stores would shutter across February and March. These branches both closed at the start of January. Residents described the move as another 'nail in the coffin' for the area, which has been plagued by closures including several in recent years. The bargain retailer, which has been on the high street for nearly four decades, has around 105 stores still up and running. Plenty of other retailers are closing stores across the high street as households lean more towards online shopping and amid high business rates. The data also showed over half the stores that closed last year were shut due to the store or retailer going through insolvency proceedings. This equates to about 91 stores, with a significant impact on it's 8,000 strong workforce. The company has restructured its store estate twice in the past six years, reducing its portfolio from around 600 UK stores in 2018. 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.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.
RETAIL CLOSURES HIGH STREET FASHION EMPLOYMENT CONSUMER SPENDING
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