A MAJOR supermarket with 900 locations will shut a popular high street branch, in the latest blow to Britain’s waning high street.
Iceland is preparing to shut its branch in Leigh town centre after the business decided against renewing its lease.
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The popular frozen good retailer has operated in the town for decades, occupying the space of a former Lennon’s Supermarket.
Iceland will close the branch for good on Saturday November 1, according to a report in the Leigh Journal.
Staff at the store are said to have been offered jobs elsewhere.
The Sun has contacted Iceland for comment.
Locals have branded the move a “big blow” for the area.
While another frustrated shopper said: “Every corner you turn it’s well depressing and grim.”
While a third said the news was “so sad” and a fourth described the closure as a “shame”.
The news follows a string of closures made by the bargain supermarket chain.
Iceland closed two sites across Margate and Inverness over the summer.
Its branch in the Kent seaside town will closed on June 21, while the Scottish store shut on July 12.
At the time, the major supermarket said staff at both sites were entered in to a “consultation process and offered opportunities at surrounding stores where possible”.
Iceland pulled down the shutters permanently on its site in Welling at the start of the year.
A site in Borehamwood and another in Exeter permanently shut around the same time.
The latest closures means Iceland has shut more than 20 stores since the start of 2023.
Trouble on the high street
And it’s not only Iceland which has made the decision to shut shops in recent weeks.
Asda will shut its branch in Anchor Retail Park in Stepney Green, London this weekend.
River Island will close up to 33 stores in January as part of a restructuring plan to help write off the fashion brand’s debts.
Locations in major UK cities including Edinburgh, Leeds, Oxford, Brighton and Perth are all expected to close.
Meanwhile, Poundland will close 68 stores as part of a huge restructuring plan.
Question marks also remain over the future of Bodycare, with the beauty and healthcare chain expected to appoint administrators as soon as today.
RETAIL PAIN IN 2025
The British Retail Consortium has predicted that the Treasury’s hike to employer NICs will cost the retail sector £2.3billion.
Research by the British Chambers of Commerce shows that more than half of companies plan to raise prices by early April.
A survey of more than 4,800 firms found that 55% expect prices to increase in the next three months, up from 39% in a similar poll conducted in the latter half of 2024.
Three-quarters of companies cited the cost of employing people as their primary financial pressure.
The Centre for Retail Research (CRR) has also warned that around 17,350 retail sites are expected to shut down this year.
It comes on the back of a tough 2024 when 13,000 shops closed their doors for good, already a 28% increase on the previous year.
Professor Joshua Bamfield, director of the CRR said: “The results for 2024 show that although the outcomes for store closures overall were not as poor as in either 2020 or 2022, they are still disconcerting, with worse set to come in 2025.”
Professor Bamfield has also warned of a bleak outlook for 2025, predicting that as many as 202,000 jobs could be lost in the sector.
“By increasing both the costs of running stores and the costs on each consumer’s household it is highly likely that we will see retail job losses eclipse the height of the pandemic in 2020.”
