The start of 2026 has already seen a wave of store closures – with fears of many more to come
A further 14,000 shops shut last year, with 150,000 job losses, say experts.
The Centre for Retail Research warned this year was looking like suffering a similar number of store closures, in a further blow to communities across the country.
The prediction comes five years after department store chain Debenhams collapsed, leaving gaping holes in high streets and shopping. More than a dozen former Debenhams branches remain empty or boarded up. At least one has become a magnet for crime.
And there seems little let-up in the strain on many high street businesses from soaring costs, competition from online, and people’s money worries.
READ MORE: Morrisons set to close 100 stores across UK with ‘hundreds of jobs at risk’READ MORE: Quiz closes all 37 UK stores as fashion retailer plunges into administration
Stationery chain TG Jones, the rebranded name for WH Smith after the sale of its high street arm, is the latest retailer in trouble. It emerged earlier this month more than one in four TG Jones stores may be closed under sweeping plans. The cull of up to 150 stores threatens thousands of job losses across its 5,000-strong workforce.
Alex Wilson, chief executive of TG Jones, admitted the business feels “completely broken” after what he said were years of under investment by its previous owner. However, he insisted in an interview with the Financial Times that it was “definitely” possible to turn the business around.
High street fashion chain Quiz entered administration in February. The womenswear retailer blamed tough trading and soaring costs. It came after more than 30 Russell & Bromley shoe shops closed after Next bought only the firm’s brand, in a move that threatened 400 job losses.
Supermarket giant Morrisons is reportedly preparing to shut around 100 outlets across the UK in a decision that could threaten hundreds of jobs.
Professor Joshua Bamfield, director of the Centre for Retail Research, said the continuation of years of tough times for many high streets had been worsened by higher costs for stores.
“This includes an increase in taxes the government has put on businesses, and the increases in wages,” he said. “Retailers are very high employers of young people, and people who are part-time, and it is much more expensive to employ those people. Some stores have simply become uneconomic.” Updating its store closure and job loss tally for last year, Professor Bamfield added: “I think there will be about the same number this year.”
It was five years ago last week the last of Debenhams remaining 124 stores began to close. The company collapsed into administration and its website and brand were bought by online giant Boohoo for £55million.
Fast forward and research shows the majority of Debenhams stores, many of which were large premises, have been filled in some way or another. Those in prime sites were snapped by the likes of Marks & Spencer, Primark and billionaire Mike Ashley’s Frasers Group.
Some have been converted into other uses, including flats and leisure venues, while the old Debenhams branch in Gloucester has been turned into a university campus.
In Cambridge, there are plans to turn the two-storey Debenhams in the city’s Grafton Centre into office and lab space for the life science industries. And defence giant BAE Systems was given the green light last year to use a former store in Barrow, Cumbria, as a replica of the facilities it uses to build submarines.
But other Debenhams branches remain vacant and, in many cases, neglected. They include the chain’s large former outlet in Plymouth, which as been labelled a “death trap”. Reports from earlier this year said a teenager was taken to hospital after he fell through the ceiling of the building.
Other branches still empty include those in Crawley, Lincoln, Middlesborough, Redditch and Southend-on-Sea.
