High street stores closures in May 2024: Full list of Marks and Spencer and WHSmith sites closing
Favourite brands are leaving Britain's high streets
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Shoppers are being dealt another blow as store closures continue to sweep Britain’s high streets in May 2024.
Marks and Spencer’s, WHSmith, Poundland and House of Fraser are among the brands closing doors of certain sites for good in the month ahead.
Marks and Spencer
The popular clothing, homeware and food retailer is shutting down three locations in May but in different parts of the country.
Among the impacted M&S sites, as well as their closure dates, include:
- Broadway Shopping Centre, Bradford - May 18
- Hexham, Northumberland - May 25,
- Neath, Wales - date to be announced.
This pending round of closures comes as part of a wider overhaul of Marks and Spencer’s operations.
It hopes to tackle “low productivity” sites over the next five years and build more food courts in existing ones.
High streets have been hit by a wave of closures since the pandemic PAWHSmith
The newsagent and stationary chain will also be affected by the latest round of store closures hitting the high street.
Among the impacted Marks and Spencer sites, as well as their closure dates, include:
- Slough, Berkshire - May 11
- Huddersfield, West Yorkshire - May 11
- High Street, Slough (Post Office branch - date to be announced.
Poundland
Other brands to close down stores this month include Poundland which is shutting down its Bishop Stortford branch in Hertfordshire on Saturday, May 4.
House of Fraser
Furthermore, department store chain House of Fraser will close its location in Carlisle but an exact date has yet to be given.
Research carried out by PwC found there was a net of 14 store closures a day last year with 5,000 fewer stores trading across the country.
An average of 39 chain brands shut down sites daily, while 25 new stores opened, which led to a total of 14,081 store closures for 2023.
Over the period, supermarkets saw 40 new stores open per day, due to the rise of discount grocers such as Aldi and Lidl.
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS:
House of Fraser will close one store this month PALisa Hooker, a leader of industry for consumer markets at PwC, outlined what this suggests about changes to market.
She explained: “A combination of the lagged impact of the pandemic together with inflation across the cost base has seen an acceleration in chain stores exiting the market in 2023 at 14 stores a day and some disappointing results across the independent sector.
“We believe the step-up in net closures reflects more one-off failures and will improve this year.
“It shows the impact of the trend of wanting to shop and consumer services seamlessly across different channels with longer-term growth in spending online mirroring the annual net closures in physical sites.”
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