Exact date ‘brilliant’ M&S store is set to close – but it’s not all bad news for shoppers
MARKS and Spencer has revealed the exact date it will close a “brilliant” branch for good.
The posh shop, which has 405 stores across the UK, is set to close its branch in Sunderland, much to the surprise of shoppers.
The news was announced a few weeks ago, although no date had been set for the closure.
Now we can reveal the exact date the store in High Street West will close is May 29.
Customers were left stunned by the news, with many taking to social media to share their surprise.
Writing on Facebook, one fan said: “That’s so sad to hear! It’s been there for as long as I’ve been alive.”
Another cried: “Sad news. My first first full time job in 1964 when I left school was there. They were happy days.”
Another simply wrote: “Absolute disgrace.”
While a fourth added: “Sad times!! This will be a massive loss to our city!!”
The branch has been well-reviewed on Google too.
M&S fans have described it as “brilliant” and “staff are always friendly, helpful and cheerful”.
The posh shop chain said the decision to close the store was made due to changing shopping habits.
Philip Barker-Thomson, M&S regional manager, previously said: “Shopping habits are changing, so we’re rotating our store estate to make sure we have the right stores to offer customers a brilliant shopping experience.
“As part of these changes, we have today announced to colleagues our proposal to close our M&S Sunderland store at 77 High Street West.
“We appreciate that this will be disappointing news for some.”
But it’s definitely not all bad news for locals because when one food hall shuts, an even bigger one opens.
The new site, which will also sell clothing, will open the following day on May 30.
A post on social media reads: “It’s official… Our bigger, better, fresher and new ‘The Galleries Washington’ store opens its doors on Thursday 30 May at 9am!
“Our current ‘Washington Galleries Simply Food’ store will be closing on Wednesday 29 May.”
The new shop is 43,000 sq ft full-line store, with a fresh-market style foodhall, double the size of the existing store.
And shoppers won’t have far to walk because the new shop will be located only a few stores down from the current Simply Foods.
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. 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.
Boss Stuart Machin recently said that when it relocated a tired store in Chesterfield to a new big store in a retail park half a mile away, its sales in the area rose by 103 per cent.
In some cases, stores have been shut when a retailer goes bust, as in the case of Wilko, Debenhams Topshop, Dorothy Perkins and Paperchase 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.
OTHER M&S CLOSURES
It comes as part of M&S’s plans to shake up its high street store presence, closing 110 branches but opening 100.
In October 2022, the posh retailer announced that 67 “lower productivity” branches would shut down over the following five years.
The 67 sites came as part of a wider radical restructuring plan first announced in 2016, which aimed to close 110 stores by 2022.
The retailer which runs 405 stores across the country, shut down locations in Manchester, Swindon and Birmingham between August and November last year.
The retailer has recently announced a proposal to close its Redhill store in Surrey.
The store is located in the Belfry Shopping Centre in Redhill and locals say that closing the store would “kill the town”.
M&S also announced the closure of its Walworth store in South London, and its home store in Kingditch Trading Estate in Tewkesbury, Cheltenham.
The site at The Broadway Shopping Centre will be closing its doors for the last time on May 18.
If you want to know if your local might be next, we have the full list of M&S stores that are marked for closure in 2024.
However, it is not all bad news for the retailer, or shoppers as in January 2023, it announced it would open 20 more stores over the financial year.
At the same time, it said it’s opening 104 new “bigger and fresher” food stores.
In the last 12 months, it has opened 22 sites including in Liverpool, Leeds, Birmingham and Manchester.
What else is happening on the high street
Other retailers have been slimming down their number of high street branches, such as Iceland, Boots and Matalan.
A combination of rising rents, energy bills and the cost of living has meant that many retailers have been unable to survive.
Several big retailers have fallen into administration in the past year including Wilko, Paperchase, and most recently The Body Shop and Ted Baker.
The Body Shop collapsed into administration on February 13, putting its almost 198 branches at risk of closure.
Since then it has closed down 82 locations.
It is not only shops that are disappearing from our town centres, big banks are shutting up shop too.
As more customers move to online banking there is no need for some high street branches, and some just are no longer getting the footfall to justify premises being open.
Lloyds, Barclays and RBS are among those closing down premises.
If you are wondering if your local town might be affected by closures you can check out our full list of high street shops and supermarkets closing forever in May.
Meanwhile, a big high street fashion chain with 130 stores is set to shut a “fabulous” branch in a matter of days.
Plus, shoppers have been left gutted after a popular high street retailer with more than 1,400 stores shut one of its branches for good today.
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