High street chains including Aldi, Costa Coffee and WHSmith are all set to close stores over the next week. Other big brands shutting up shop including Oxfam, JoJo Maman Bebe and Bimbi.
Costa Coffee is closing its store in Lyme Regis today (April 24) in what shoppers said was “really sad news” for the high street. The exact reason why the chain is closing this particular branch has not been revealed.
Next up, WHSmith is closing two shops – one in Newport, Wales and the other in Haverhill, Suffolk – on Saturday (April 26) after the struggling retailer decided not to renew the leases. It comes after WHSmith agreed to sell its UK high street chain to investment firm Modella Capital in a deal valuing £76 million.
The majority of its stores will eventually rebrand as TGJones, however, a large number of them will shut down. Oxfam will also say goodbye to its Ludlow store on Saturday, while JoJo Maman Bebe will shut its Haywards Heath branch and Bimbi will close its Bury St Edmunds store.
Then on Sunday (April 27) Aldi will close its store in Llanelli, Wales. Shoppers will have to visit the next nearest Aldi in Trostre Road, which is around 1.5miles away. The UK high street has taken a battering in recent years due to changing shopping habits.
More people are shopping online, while the cost of living crisis means people have less money to spend in the stores. Latest data from The Centre for Retail Research shows 13,479 retail stores closed in the UK in 2024.
WHATSAPP GROUP: Get money news and top deals straight to your phone by joining our Money WhatsApp group here. We also treat our community members to special offers, promotions, and adverts from us and our partners. If you don’t like our community, you can check out any time you like. If you’re curious, you can read our Privacy Notice.
NEWSLETTER: Or sign up to the Mirror’s Money newsletter here for all the best advice and shopping deals straight to your inbox.
This is equivalent to about 37 stores closing each day. More than 17,000 stores are set to close this year as retailers face higher costs from this April, in the form of higher employer National Insurance contributions and a rise in minimum wage. According the British Retail Consortium, the retail sector is facing an additional £70bn added to its tax bill.
Professor Joshua Bamfield, research director at The Centre for Retail Research, 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.”
At Reach and across our entities we and our partners use information collected through cookies and other identifiers from your device to improve experience on our site, analyse how it is used and to show personalised advertising. You can opt out of the sale or sharing of your data, at any time clicking the “Do Not Sell or Share my Data” button at the bottom of the webpage. Please note that your preferences are browser specific. Use of our website and any of our services represents your acceptance of the use of cookies and consent to the practices described in our Privacy Notice and Cookie Notice.
