A MAJOR high street retailer is closing dozens of stores this week, and a map reveals whether your local branch is affected.
Select Fashion is now just hours away from completing its plan to close 35 of its branches on March 15.
This follows documents shared with The Sun, which outlined plans for all affected stores to close between February and March.
To date, 12 stores have already shut their doors, with the remaining 23 locations scheduled to close permanently this Saturday.
These closures follow a series of store shutdowns carried out by the brand last year.
Select Fashion, owned by Turkish entrepreneur Cafer Mahiroğlu, entered administration in 2019, citing challenging conditions on the high street as the primary cause.
The retailer was subsequently rescued from administration by Genus UK Limited.
Recent filings with Companies House – the UK’s official register of businesses – reveal that Select Fashion entered into a Company Voluntary Arrangement (CVA) last summer.
A CVA is a restructuring process that allows businesses to continue trading while renegotiating debts, such as reducing rent costs with landlords.
It is a common strategy for struggling companies seeking to remain operational, with well-known chains such as Caffè Nero and The Body Shop having previously utilised this approach.
Following the latest round of store closures, it is believed that only 48 Select stores will remain open for business.
Before its administration in 2019, the chain which has been on the high street for nearly four decades, had a total of 169 stores.
Which stores have already closed?
TO date, 12 Select Fashion stores have already shut their doors, ahead of the remaining 24 locations scheduled to close permanently this Saturday.
These stores were located in:
- Ashton-under-Lyne
- Chippenham
- Crewe
- Hatfield
- Kidderminster
- Southampton
- Thornby
- Torquay
- Wellingborough
- Witham
- Worksop
- Wolverhampton
The closures have saddened shoppers.
One Worksop local, who saw the store close on March 5, said: “It will be a shame to see you go.
“Worksop is going to be a ghost town we have no clothes shop left.”
Scunthorpe locals said Select’s departure was “another nail in the coffin” for the town centre.
Meanwhile, residents in Eastleigh and Southampton will have to bid farewell to their local Select store after less than two years.
The brand only opened in the neighbouring areas back in October 2023.
These reports also follow a barrage of closures made by the bargain fashion store last year.
Bosses decided to call time on its Ipswich, Kent, and Cwmbran branches in 2024.
Select also closed its branch in the Erith Riverside Shopping Centre in London.
Why are retailers closing shops?
EMPTY shops have become an eyesore on many British high streets and are often symbolic of a town centre’s decline.
The Sun’s business editor Ashley Armstrong explains why so many retailers are shutting their doors.
In many cases, retailers are shutting stores because they are no longer the money-makers they once were because of the rise of online shopping.
Falling store sales and rising staff costs have made it even more expensive for shops to stay open.
The British Retail Consortium has predicted that the Treasury’s hike to employer NICs from April 2025, will cost the retail sector £2.3billion.
At the same time, the minimum wage will rise to £12.21 an hour from April, and the minimum wage for people aged 18-20 will rise to £10 an hour, an increase of £1.40.
In some cases, retailers are shutting a store and reopening a new shop at the other end of a high street to reflect how a town has changed.
The problem is that when a big shop closes, footfall falls across the local high street, which puts more shops at risk of closing.
Retail parks are increasingly popular with shoppers, who want to be able to get easy, free parking at a time when local councils have hiked parking charges in towns.
Many retailers including Next and Marks & Spencer have been shutting stores on the high street and taking bigger stores in better-performing retail parks instead.
In some cases, stores have been shut when a retailer goes bust, as in the case of Carpetright, Debenhams, Dorothy Perkins, Paperchase, Ted Baker, The Body Shop, Topshop and Wilko to name a few.
What’s increasingly common is when a chain goes bust a rival retailer or private equity firm snaps up the intellectual property rights so they can own the brand and sell it online.
They may go on to open a handful of stores if there is customer demand, but there are rarely ever as many stores or in the same places.
The Centre for Retail Research (CRR) has warned that around 17,350 retail sites are expected to shut down this year.
Other shops leaving the high street
Beales, one of Britain’s oldest department stores, has launched a closing down sale before it shuts its last remaining shop after more than 140 years.
The company will shut its branch in Poole’s Dolphin Centre on May 31.
The sale includes fashion, furniture, gifts and cosmetics, being sold for up to 70% off.
Beales chief executive Tony Brown blamed the “devastating impact” of the rise in national insurance contributions and the higher minimum wage for the store closure.
Meanwhile, high street fashion chain New Look has begun to close stores as it scales back its UK footprint.
It is understood to be shutting nearly 100 stores – equivalent to around a quarter of its 364 shops.
Stores in Gateshead, Tyne and Wear, St Austell, Cornwall and Porth, Rhondda Cynon Taf have launched closing down sales.
Reports suggest that the company has been forced to accelerate the pace of store closures due to tax changes in the Autumn Budget.
Meanwhile, Huttons in London will shut its store in the Putney Exchange due to excessive energy costs.
The gift shop became a local icon after it opened in the 1990s.
