A MAJOR UK retail chain is poised to knock down a “ghost town” branch after the firm fell into administration.
The Wilko store located on Kirkgate in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, is earmarked for demolition so the southern entrance to the city centre can be redeveloped.
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The outlet shut its doors in 2023 after the high street chain of homestores went into administration.
It is one of five commercial properties in the area that are due to be knocked down.
They will be replaced with new homes and business units as part of a wider scheme by the local council to regenerate the area.
Mini Market, Mattress and Divan Centre, Sweet Sensations and Hi Sushi are the other retail outlet set to be flattened as part of the plans.
Wakefield Council was given nearly £25million worth of funding for the scheme from the government’s Towns Fund in 2019.
The work was approved following a planning proposal which had been submitted by the council but a planning officer’s report said a further application would have to be submitted before the site could be redeveloped.
Lower Kirkgate is a key route to get to the waterfront and is considered a major gateway to the city centre.
The council had previously called the area a “blight” on the city, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.
It is also hoped that the redevelopment will encourage “younger professionals” to live in the city centre and “bring year-round day and evening vibrancy” to the area, according to the council.
Wilko closed its doors for good in 2023 after nearly a century in business, with more than 400 stores shutting and 12,000 staff affected.
The news comes after the homeware giant Wayfair slashed its UK workforce by more than half in just two years, as it grapples with tumbling sales and a sharp drop in profit.
The US-based furniture retailer, which operates across Britain, cut staff numbers from 847 in 2022 to just 405 by the end of 2024, according to fresh filings with Companies House.
Wilko isn’t the only retailer feeling the pinch on the high street. Furniture favourite MADE.com collapsed into administration in 2022 after failing to find a buyer, leading to hundreds of job losses.
Habitat also shut down all standalone stores in 2021, moving exclusively online after years of underperformance.
Even major players have been forced to adapt.
Argos has continued to reduce its physical footprint, shutting dozens of standalone shops and moving into parent company Sainsbury’s stores to save costs.
Retail experts say changing consumer habits, rising costs and weaker demand are continuing to batter the home and furniture sector.
Many shoppers have tightened their belts amid soaring bills and higher interest rates, with big-ticket items like sofas and beds often the first to be cut from household budgets.
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.”
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