Legendary shoe shop loved by parents with 300 branches to shut store leaving shoppers ‘living in a ghost town’
A BELOVED shoe shop chain is set to pull the shutters down one of its stores.
Clarks has announced the closure of yet another location within weeks.
The footwear chain is pulling down the shutters on its branch in March, Cambridgeshire, local news reports.
Clarks confirmed the site, labelled “excellent” by shoppers, will be shutting at the beginning of September.
The retailer thanked both shoppers for their support over the years.
The shock closure has left several local customers devastated, although the trader maintains over 300 branches nationwide.
One Facebook user said: “Just read Clarks is closing, another historic name gone from March, yes I think the regeneration and footfall played a part… but unfortunately the price of their shoes did not help yes they were worth the price but people just don’t have that sort of money spare nowadays.”
Another wrote: “So sad. I have always bought my shoes from there, only the other day I bought a pair of trainers.
“Perhaps if we didn’t buy everything online these shops could keep going. We have only ourselves to blame.”
A third commented: “Gutted, only place around here to get decent shoes, so now its a trip to Cambridge or Kings Lynn.”
A fourth posted: “Town is dying in front of us. Good job I got my sandals last week.”
While a fifth wrote: “Oooooh living in a ghost town….”
A sixth commented: “When we first moved here 20 years ago I can remember buying my daughter’s first pair of shoes once she started walking. She’ll be 21 in November.
“It is very sad all these shops are closing down.”
“Been there for many years, sad to see another shop going,” another said.
The Clarks shop in Broad Street will be shutting its doors on September 4.
OTHER CLARKS CLOSURES
The sad news comes just days after the popular retailer announced that its shop in St Helier is shutting on July 27 after 24 years of trading.
Clarks pulled down the shutters on its branch in Stroud, Gloucestershire, on June 10.
Clarks shut down its location on Marlborough’s High Street on April 22, leaving locals without a dedicated shoe shop in the area.
So far in 2024, Clarks has also closed:
- Grove Shopping Centre, Witham – January 13, 2024
- Saddlers Shopping Centre, Walsall – February 10, 2024
- East Grinstead – March 24, 2024
- Abingdon, Oxfordshire – April 22, 2024
- Marlborough High Street – April 22, 2024
- Stroud – June 2024
- Maidenhead – June 2024
- St Helier – July 2024
In November, Clarks also brought the shutters down on its site in Newport Retail Park.
The retailer pulled down the shutters on its branch in Murrygate, Dundee last July.
Last year, the branch in Fareham shopping centre was shut for good on August 5 and Inverness in September.
It also closed its shop in Grimsby at the end of October last year and its store in Newcastle under Lyme on November 3.
The full list of sites which have shut in recent years is:
- Kent in Ashford – end of 2022
- Gillingham, end of 2022
- Murraygate, Dundee – July 25, 2023
- Fareham shopping centre, Hampshire – August 5, 2023
- High Street, Inverness – end of September, 2023
- Grimsby – end of October, 2023
- Newport Retail Park – November, 2023
- Riverside Shopping Centre, Norwich – November, 2023
- Westwood Cross Shopping – mid-November, 2023
- High Street, Newcastle – November 2023
- Bicester Village, Oxfordshire – December 31, 2023
- The Bridges Shopping Centre, Sunderland – date unknown
But Clarks opened up a new store in Newcastle’s Eldon Square shopping centre on May 14, 2023.
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.
RETAIL WOES
Other retailers, such as Iceland, Boots, and Matalan, have been reducing the number of their high-street branches.
Rising rents, energy bills, and the cost of living have also caused many retailers to fail.
Several big retailers have fallen into administration in the past year, including Wilko, Paperchase, and most recently, The Body Shop and Ted Baker.
The Body Shop collapsed into administration on February 13, putting its almost 198 branches at risk of closure.
Since then, it has closed down 82 locations.
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.
In recent months, Asda has been opening hundreds of convenience stores as it seeks 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.
Purepay Retail Limited, the parent company of Bonmarché, Edinburgh Woollen Mill (EWM), and Peacocks, 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.
Do you have a money problem that needs sorting? Get in touch by emailing money-sm@news.co.uk.
Plus, you can join our Sun Money Chats and Tips Facebook group to share your tips and stories