A BIG DIY chain with over 150 branches is closing an “excellent” store in just hours.
Part of one of Britain’s most favoured home and gardening chains, the shop was renowned in the area – but the landlord wants to take its site in a different direction.
Homebase confirmed September 6 was the final date for the shop in Riverside Retail Park in Northampton.
It’s understood the closure came following the landlord’s plans to transform the site into two separate units, leaving the company saddened in being forced to depart.
The retailer offered a variety of indoor furniture, paint, tolls and ideas and advice, along with gardening goods.
Now the last Northampton branch is open for just hours longer.
Shoppers said it was already looking empty last week.
A Google review said: “It’s looking empty now, not much on the shelves.”
Another said: “Absolutely nothing worth buying, 90% of the shelves are empty … I suppose that’s why it’s got a closing-down sale.”
It was previously enjoyed by shoppers.
One woman wrote: “You can get almost anything delivered to your home here at affordable prices.
Another said: “Brighten Up Your Garden for Less! Great news for garden enthusiasts.”
The Riverside shop was the last remaining Homebase in Northampton, after a Sixfields store shut in 2019.
There is now only one Homebase standing in the broader Northamptonshire county – at Abby Retail Park in Daventry.
Another Northampton retailer is closing its doors these weekend, with department store Next waving the town goodbye.
There’s been several shops farewell the area in recent years, including a Marks and Spencer in 2018, BHS 2016 and Debenhams in 2021.
In a separate development, Homebase is closing 10 of its stores in a huge takeover by a leading supermarket.
Sainsbury’s has agreed to acquire all the affected shops and convert the units into supermarkets.
The handover is scheduled for next month, potentially putting a number of Homebase employees at risk of redundancy.
However, Sainsbury’s has committed to offering interviews to any Homebase staff affected by the closures.
The Homebase locations set for conversion are located in:
Sainsbury’s plans to open the first of these new stores by next summer, marking a significant expansion for the supermarket chain.
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.
