A MAJOR DIY retailer is set to shut an “essential ” store within weeks – and the exact date has been revealed.
B&Q has around 300 stores across the country in cities like Brighton, Nottingham and Cardiff.
It’s a one-stop shop for everything from garden furniture, to tools and kitchen appliances.
But shoppers in Sutton, South London, will soon need to find an alternative DIY retailer as the chain is set to close its store in the town on Saturday, June 8.
Writing in the Google reviews, locals have described the store as “excellent”, “helpful” and with staff who go “above and beyond”.
Shoppers have flocked to social media to share their sadness over the decision to close the site.
One Facebook user said: “Very disappointing to see.”
Another cried: “That’s a big loss for residents in Sutton.”
A third added: “This is terrible news if you don’t have a car there is nowhere else to go. It is such a fantastic shop to lose.”
And a fourth wrote: “It will be sad to see it go. I shop in there a lot and it’s a great store.”
A B&Q spokesperson said: “Due to unsuccessful negotiations to renew the lease at our Sutton Court Road store, we will be closing our doors on June 8, 2024.
“In preparation for this closure and to ensure we can continue to serve local residents, last year we opened a B&Q Local store on Sutton High Street where customers can continue to shop for all their home improvement needs.”
There are also nearby stores in Holloway Road, Wandsworth and Tooting, so shoppers will still be able to bag their DIY essentials.
Just because a chain is closing a shop, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s struggling.
Most stores close because companies try to reorganise and cut costs rather than the business failing.
In some instances, a company may have to close a store because they can’t agree to terms with the landlord.
Despite the closure, B&Q said that new store openings “remain at the heart of our retail growth strategy”.
Last March, B&Q shut eight “mini-shops” located inside Asda supermarkets.
The retailer said it intended to launch smaller stores along the high street instead.
Why are retailers close 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 on a retail park a 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.
IN OTHER NEWS
It’s not all bad news for the high street, as several other retailers and hospitality venues have plans to expand.
Beer giant Heineken announced plans to invest £39million to help reopen 62 previously shuttered British pubs.
Aldi has announced that it will open 35 new UK stores.
The openings form part of Aldi‘s long-term target of 1,500 stores in the UK.
The supermarket is set to invest £550million in expanding its UK footprint this year alone.
Aldi said each new store opening will create around 40 new jobs on average.
Asda has been opening hundreds of convenience stores in recent months as it looks to rival major players Tesco and Sainsbury’s.
B&M plans to open “not less than” 45 brand new stores across the UK in each of the next two consecutive years.
The parent company of Bonmarché, Edinburgh Woollen Mill (EWM) and Peacocks, Purepay Retail Limited, has said it wants to open 100 new high street stores over the next 18 months.
It has yet to give the exact locations where it will open the 100 stores or when they will open.
One of the UK’s favourite bakery chains, Greggs, has exclusively revealed to The Sun plans to open more outlet branches by the end of 2025.
Home Bargains, which was running just under 600 branches as of last June, has said it wants to “eventually have between 800 and 1,000 retail outlets open”.
The major discounter has stopped short of saying when it wants to reach the 1,000 store target, however.
Primark is also opening new branches and investing and renovating more than a dozen of its existing shops.
Screwfix is set to open 40 new stores nationwide as its owner, Kingfisher, seeks to expand the DIY brand’s national presence.
The brand opened two new stores in March, and a further three new shops will open this month.
Tesco has revealed plans to open 70 more stores across the UK over the next year as part of major expansion plans.
WHSmith has turned its focus to the travel side of its business, with plans to open new sites in airports, railway stations and hospitals.
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