Fears seaside resort turning into ‘ghost city’ after retailer pulls out | UK | News | EUROtoday
An enormous presence on Britain’s excessive streets has been slammed by locals after it determined to shut its doorways, elevating fears that the seaside resort is turning into a “ghost town.” Despite having over 800 branches up and down the nation, Superdrug is becoming a member of others in shutting up store on Bournemouth’s High Street.
Residents referred to as the make-up and drugs retailer’s resolution “ridiculous,” with simply days to go till the city’s WH Smiths additionally shuts down on January 18. This catastrophe for the city’s purchasing space is a part of a wider image of excessive avenue decline, with greater than 13,000 shops closing within the first 11 months of 2024—bringing the full variety of outlets misplaced in two years to virtually 25,000.
Over this similar interval, round 1 / 4 of one million retail jobs have additionally been misplaced, in yet one more blow to many cities’ economies. With the lack of one other main retailer, folks in Bournemouth mentioned it was “shocking” to see yet one more retailer go away, with many questioning “what went wrong?”
While there are three different Superdrugs in Bournemouth, the closest at the very least three miles from the city centre, the loss leaves a big 17,736 sq ft gap reverse the purchasing arcade on Commercial Road – inflicting one native to lament “Bournemouth has died.”
While Superdrug has not publicly confirmed the trigger for its central Bournemouth closure, the Sun has realized the retailer needed to go away as a result of landlord desirous to redevelop the location. Instead of the double-length store entrance, consumers will see the shop was eight smaller models.
The resolution has puzzled some who mentioned of the central Superdrug “It’s such a good shop,” including that the closing WH Smith was “one of the best” locations in Bournemouth to get artwork provides. This store’s imminent closure follows others in Bournemouth, additionally closing the Wincanton department of WH Smith in February, after already closing one in close by Boscombe final yr.
Though a well-known sight on most British excessive streets, WH Smith has determined to focus its enterprise on its extra profitable journey and kiosk choices. By the tip of the yr, it plans to open 15 extra shops on this sector.
Despite being in a comparatively higher interval for shopper spending than in earlier years, the British Retail Consortium (BRC) is predicting that this pattern of store closures may truly worsen in 2025. This is due to the Treasury’s resolution to hike National Insurance Contributions for employers, slapping an additional £2.3 billion tax invoice onto enterprise.
In a survey carried out by the BRC, three-quarters of companies cited the rising price of using staff as their main monetary stress. The Centre for Retail Research has warned that this, in addition to different elements, may result in a whopping 17,350 store closures this yr, with as much as 200,000 job losses
Professor Joshua Bamfield, director of the CRR mentioned: “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. 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.”
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/2000528/superdrug-shuts-another-store-adding-to-fears-seaside-resort-is-becoming-ghost-town