POUNLAND has confirmed the exact date its Gravesend store will shut, marking another blow for Britain’s struggling high streets.
The popular discount chain will close its St George’s Centre branch in Gravesend in just a couple of hours, leaving locals disappointed and frustrated.
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This closure is part of a wider wave of Poundland shutdowns happening across the UK this month.
Locals in the Kent town have not held back their disappointment.
One resident said, “What a dump Gravesend has become.”
Another added, “All the decent shops have gone.”
A third noted: “The town has lost so many shops and the market used to be bustling, now it’s dying bit by bit, be a ghost town.”
The shopping centre has already been hit hard, with big-name exits like Argos, WHSmith, and the gift shop Don’t Panic.
The closure of Poundland is seen by many as yet another nail in the coffin for the town centre.
A Poundland spokesperson said: “It’s correct we’ve sadly decided to close our St George’s Centre store on 8 May.
Our Imperial Retail Park store is only around half a mile away, and we look forward to continuing to welcome shoppers there.”
The company also assured that it’s doing all it can to support staff, adding: “Whenever we decide to close a store, we do all we can to look for other opportunities for colleagues, and that work is now underway.”
The Gravesend store is just one of several Poundland sites shutting this month.
Last week, its Clapham Junction station store in London closed on May 2, and on May 6, the Belle Vale Shopping Centre branch in Liverpool shut its doors.
Later this month, Poundland will also close its store in Brackla, Wales, with the final trading day set for May 24.
These closures follow several others over recent months, including in Belfast, where the Connswater Shopping Centre’s receivership forced the shop to close at the end of March.
Back in October, residents in Maidenhead were left upset when their local Poundland branch shut down.
That came after the closure of the Sutton Coldfield store in early October and the Macclesfield branch last August.
Retail experts remind shoppers that store closures are not always a sign of financial collapse.
Often, businesses close underperforming stores, relocate to higher footfall areas, or shift focus to online sales.
However, Poundland’s parent company, Polish retail giant Pepco Group, is currently exploring a potential sale of its UK business.
In March, it brought in advisory firm Teneo to handle the process.
Pepco has been facing rising costs, including hikes in national insurance contributions and the minimum wage, which have squeezed its bottom line.
The group recently reported a sharp £641 million profit drop last year, largely due to a “non-cash impairment” linked to its 2016 acquisition of Poundland.
To make matters worse, Poundland also reported a 9.3 per cent fall in revenue for the last three months of 2024, raising concerns about its future strategy in the UK.
Despite the storm, Poundland still has a strong presence, with over 800 stores across the UK and Ireland.
For now, it says it remains committed to serving customers at its remaining locations.
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.”
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