A MAJOR retailer with 1,100 branches to shut another shop as 18 stores are set to close for good.
WH Smith has confirmed yet another closure after revealing 17 stores would shut for good in the coming months.
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Its branch on Powis Street in Woolwich is now the latest to be marked for closure, with the store shutting up shop for good in April
The stationery and sweet shop has been on the south-east London high street for almost two decades, first opening in 2008.
Customers have branded the closure a “shame”, with many saying there would be “no shops left” in the area.
One disgruntled customer said: “Another nail in the coffin, as if there was anything left anyway; it’s been a ghost town for years.”
“Yet another decent shop closes in Woolwich,” said another.
A spokesperson for the branch told The Sun it was “disappointed” to be losing its presence in the area.
They said: “It is no longer sustainable to continue to trade from this location and the decision has been taken to close the store as a result of the forthcoming lease expiry.”
A Post Office branch located within the branch could also face closure.
A vacancy has been advertised on the runapostoffice.co.uk website in an effort to save the branch.
As for WH Smith, it already has plans to close another branch in Bournemouth in the New Year.
It said that it would be closing its Winton branch in Bournemouth, Dorset on February 15.
It comes after the retailer, whose stores are a regular fixture in airports around the world, closed its Boscombe branch in the same town in June.
WHSmith has also closed down several stores outside Bournemouth this year, including in Bolton, Lancashire.
WHSmith is focusing on the travel side of its business where sales are growing.
In an update this year to investors, the retailer said it’s on track to open 15 stores this year, with a further 15 to follow “each year over the medium term”.
The retailer said it would be moving away from its high-street stores and has no plans to open any more.
Now a total of 18 sites have been confirmed for closure this year, following a number of closures last year.
Here is the full list of WHSmith closures taking place in 2025 so far:
- Bournemouth Old Christchurch Road, Dorset – January 18
- Luton, Bedfordshire – January 18
- March, Cambridgeshire – January 25
- Basingstoke, Hampshire – February 1
- Newtown, Powys – February 15
- Winton branch in Bournemouth, Dorset – February 15
- Rhyl, Denbighshire – February 15
- Bolton, Greater Manchester – February
- Accrington, Lancashire – March 15
- Halstead, Essex – April
- Halesowen, West Midlands – April
- Diss, Norfolk – April
- Newport, Wales – April
- Haverhill, Suffolk – April 26
- Woolwich – April
- Stockton, County Durham – May
- Oldham, Greater Manchester – May
- Orpington, Greater London – no date given yet
TROUBLE ON THE HIGH STREET
Just this month, bosses at a number of prominent retailers have revealed plans to cut stores from their estates.
Garden centre giant Dobbies closed 12 of its stores before Christmas to help shore up extra costs following a restructuring plan.
Meanwhile, Homebase has confirmed that six of its sites will close before the end of the year.
These include sites in Sutton Coldfield, Bromsgrove, Cromer, Fareham, Newark and Rugby.
Three more Homebase sites in Derry, Inverurie, and Omagh are also set to close in the coming months, along with a branch in Glenrothes near Fife.
The garden and homeware retailer crashed into administration last month, but around 70 stores were rescued by CDS Superstores, the owner of The Range and Wilko.
At the time it entered administration, Homebase operated 141 stores.
RETAIL PAIN IN 2025
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.
Three-quarters of companies cited the cost of employing people as their primary financial pressure.
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.”