‘Difficult decision’ says supermarket giant with 2,000 stores as it confirms exact date ‘excellent’ shop to close
A SUPERMARKET giant is set to shutter a beloved superstore, and it’s now revealed the exact date it will close.
Tesco will be pulling down the shutters on its site in Chippenham in just a matter of months.
The chain previously announced the closure back in January but hadn’t set a final date.
This has now been confirmed as August 15, according to local news.
A sign displayed at the shop said: “This store will permanently close on August 15, 2024.
“Your nearest Tesco store is Chippenham, SN15 3EY.”
It had been a staple of the Emery Gate shopping centre since 2008 when it signed a 15-year lease for the largest premises in the building.
But the supermarket giant made the “difficult decision” to close the Wiltshire store permanently.
They previously told Sun Money: “We have taken the difficult decision to close our Chippenham Superstore.
“We have however secured a new smaller premises in Chippenham town centre which we will open as Tesco Chippenham High Street Express, and we look forward to continuing to serve our customers at our local stores.”
The new Express store is the former site of a Wilko site which left when the chain went into administration last year.
No date has been confirmed for the opening of the new shop as yet.
Shoppers have expressed their disappointment at the closure online.
One said: “Huge loss to Chippenham. Appalling that it has got to the point where we will have no supermarket in the town centre.
“Many elderly and vulnerable people who live near the town centre (and don’t have transport) have relied on it for years.
“It is an excellent store. What we will be left with is a puny Tesco Express, with few lines and increased cost.”
Another wrote: “Just another nail in the coffin that was, Chippenham town centre.
“People won’t be doing a weekly shop in a Tesco Express with those prices.”
A third commented: “I won’t be using Tesco Express. The prices are extortionate.”
A fourth posted: “Making big mistake closing it down nobody is going to spend large amounts of money in Tesco Express where the prices are much inflated.”
“This is such a shame,” another said.
Of course just because a retailer is closing its doors on a store doesn’t mean that it’s in trouble.
There are plenty of reasons chains shut shops, as our Business Editor explains below.
Why are retailers closing 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 in a retail park 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.
HIGH STREET WOES
Several major shops and chains are closing dozens of branches in 2024.
Some stores will be replaced or relocated while others will disappear from the high street forever.
Argos, Next, Jack Wills and Poundland will all shut selected branches forever in the new year.
It comes as 6,000 retail outlets have brought down the shutters since 2018, according to the British Retail Consortium.
The trade association’s chief executive Helen Dickinson OBE blamed the closures on “crippling” business rates and the impact of coronavirus lockdowns.
Several major brands have also collapsed, such as Wilko and Paperchase.
Energy costs have risen and more shoppers than ever are choosing to order online rather than head into stores.
This has left some retailers grappling with budgets and having no choice but to close stores to cut costs.
Several big retailers have fallen into administration in the past year, including Wilko, Paperchase, and most recently, The Body Shop and Ted Baker.
For the most part, supermarkets have braved the storm as they provide essential items like food and drink but other retailers have been less fortunate.
The turmoil has sent several retailers into administration The Body Shop is currently going through administration and announced plans to close half of its 198 stores.
Boots announced it would be closing 300 stores over the next year as part of plans to evolve its brand.
Wilko collapsed into administration last year after being hit hard by inflationary pressures, competition from rivals and supply chain challenges.
However, 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.
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