A MAJOR fashion retailer with more than 350 stores will close a shopping centre location in weeks.
New Look will close it’s two-storey shop in the Willow Place shopping centre on June 1.
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The news has come as a blow for locals who said the “town centre has nothing to offer for anyone”.
While another upset shopper said it was “sad news for the town centre”.
A third said the people need to stop online shopping, blaming the rise in the practise for the stores closures. his is what’s doing it.
A spokesperson for New Look told The Sun: “Our Corby store is set to close on 1 June. We would like to thank all of our colleagues and the local community for their support over the years.
“We hope customers continue to shop with us online at newlook.com, where our full product ranges can be found.”
The store will close in just shy of two months time, giving shoppers a short while to say their goodbyes.
It’ comes as the local River Island branch is also set to shut within the shopping centre at the end of April.
Meanwhile, the future of the WHSmith store located within the outlet also hangs in the balance
Last week, the beloved newsagents said it would sell all 500 of its high street store in a £76million.
The 232 year-old British business has agreed to sell the chain to Modella Capital, with the stores eventually rebranded as TGJones.
The store has over 580 travel stores across airports, hospitals, railway stations and motorway service areas which will continue to live on.
WHSmith has already reduced its portfolio of stores massively, with plans to shut 20 of its sites by May.
As for New Look, the store has shut a number of branches in preparation for this month’s National Insurance hike.
Approximately a quarter of the retailer’s 364 stores are at risk when their leases expire.
This equates to about 91 stores, with a significant impact on its 8,000-strong workforce.
Last month, it closed branches in St Austell and Gateshead, Tyne and Wear.
The chain has previously closed locations in Porth, Rhondda Cynon Taf and Wickford, Essex.
New Look also closed down its 26 stores in Ireland after its Irish arm entered into liquidation.
TROUBLE ON THE HIGH STREET
It comes amid a challenging time for the UK’s retail market.
Select Fashion entered into liquidation last Friday, in a move which will see 35 stores closed and 48 rescued by Essence Fashion.
None of the 40 staff members at the affected Select Fashion stores will be paid their weekly wages for the time they worked before the stores closed – nor will they be given a redundancy package.
Back in February, Quiz tumbled into insolvency, closing 23 stores.
Even H&M has shaken up its store estate revealing plans to either close its standalone Monki stores or to integrate the brand with another one of its fashion lines, Weekday.
The Swedish clothing giant has also confirmed plans to close its Arket store in the Bullring on April 6.
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.”
