High street chain with over 1,100 stores in UK shuts ‘ghost town' branch forever as shoppers lament ‘sad sight'
The shop in Stockton, Country Durham, was closed at 12 noon today for the last time.
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Locals said a sad goodbye to WHSmith in Wellington Square shopping complex today.
It comes after a string of recent closures has seen the popular British shop close several stores across the country in recent months.
Many were left gutted by the closure which will force them to travel or shop online for books, gifts and stationary.
They reacted to the news of the Stockton closure on social media with an outpouring of sadness.
Joff Dixon said: "Council are making the town centre a ghost town and that's why piss heads and drug addicts are taking over.
"I used to be proud to go to town and now won't go or even take my kids and rather go to Billingham."
Chris Archer added: "What a joke this town is now."
WHSmith was bought up by Hobbycraft owner Modella Capital earlier this year in an eye-watering £76 million deal.
Several of the retailers locations have closed in recent months with more set to follow after the deal was finalised.
The move will result in WHSmith stores vanishing completely from UK high streets.
Stores in airports, train stations and hospitals will stay open however.
More WHSmith's are set to follow as the shop winds up it's stint on the high street.
Branches in Halstead and Woolwich shut on April 12, and stores in Halesowen and Diss will follow on April 19.
Only a week later, shops in Newport and Haverhill will also pull down their shutters for the final time.
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Which WHSmith stores have closed?
At least ten WHSmith locations have already vanished from high streets this year, including:
Bournemouth (Old Christchurch Road), Dorset
Luton, Bedfordshire
March, Cambridgeshire
Basingstoke, Hampshire
Long Eaton
Newtown, Powys
Winton (Bournemouth), Dorset
Rhyl, Denbighshire
Bolton, Greater Manchester
Accrington, Lancashire
The retailer, which first opened in 1792, has faced growing pressure from rising costs, online rivals and changing shopper habits.
The end of WHSmith on the high street
The closures mark the beginning of the end of a 233-year stint on the high street for WHSmith.
Earlier this year, it put its entire high street estate up for sale and chose to focus on its more profitable travel arm.
Its remaining 480 high street stores were snapped up by Modella Capital, and the move saved the jobs of roughly 5,000 employees.
However, the famous WHSmith name is set to be lost to the high street as the shops will be gradually rebranded to TGJones.
The brand opened its first shop in 1792 in Little Grosvenor Street, London, later becoming the UK's main newspaper distributor.
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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