Next announces closure of several stores in blow to high street

Bosses at Next have announced it is to close 11 stores by the end of the year in the latest blow to the high street.

The retail giant said of the 11 stores set to close: six are not expected to hit their targets, two are down to their locations not being developed, and three are due to agreements not being reached with their current landlords.

However, the names and locations of the 11 stores have not yet been released. The news comes after the company closed its huge store inside Westfield Stratford City, in London.

In a statement, Next Trading said: “We expect to close 11 mainline stores this year.

“Six closures are in locations where we forecast that the store would not achieve our target margin on almost any terms; two closures are due to the site being redeveloped; three further closures are as a result of being unable to agree acceptable new terms with landlords. 

“This last category includes one large store where the length of the lease proposed by the landlord, on a high fixed rent charge, was not something we could agree to.”

Since the start of the year, a number of high street chains have announced closures across the UK, including New Look, Boots, Asda Living, Wilko and Iceland.

Some of the closures have been down to a decrease in sales, as more and more households rein in their spending during the cost-of-living crisis. Others were simply down to business decisions.

Boots revealed this year that it plans to shut 300 of its stores while Sainsbury’s, the owner of Lloyds Pharmacy, shared that it will shut its pharmacy sites located within its supermarkets.

Homeware brand Habitat announced it will be closing its last three remaining stand-alone sites while its owner, Sainsbury’s, confirmed its customers were increasingly making purchases online rather than in-store.

Elsewhere, frozen foods supermarket Iceland has closed 11 of its sites though it has not made any announcements to confirm the closures.

Wilko announced they had fallen into administration last month, and had around 400 stores with 12,500 staff before the company collapsed.

Wilko administrators PricewaterhouseCoopers tried to find a buyer for the company, but all deals fell through and it now has dates for 280 of its stores to close by early October, resulting in around 900 job losses.

The remaining 120 Wilko store closures and dates are yet to be announced.

Meanwhile, its rival stores B&M and Poundland have taken on a number of Wilko’s site to rebrand as their own. B&M has snapped up 51 sites and Poundland 71. The deals have not automatically saved Wilko staff working at these sites from job losses, though Poundland has said it will prioritise Wilko staff for job interviews.

Another competitor, The Range has also stepped in and bought the Wilko brand, website and intellectual property. This means it can now sell Wilko products within its stores but does not include any of its physical sites.