A MAJOR update on the future of Homebase stores has been issued.
The garden and homeware retailer crashed into administration last month, but around 70 stores were rescued by CDS Superstores, the owner of The Range and Wilko.
Bosses have plans to convert the Homebase stores into The Range Superstores sites.
These stores, located in Pollokshaws, Glasgow, Christchurch, Bournemouth and Kings Heath, Birmingham, will open their doors on January 17 at 9am.
Following these initial re-launches, there are plans to roll out up to 10 new superstores per month next year.
CDS intends for these stores to feature “Garden Centres by Homebase” and selected shops will also feature “Kitchens by Homebase”.
It means the name of the Homebase brand will live on in these locations.
The firm said it has a goal to transform 70 Homebase locations into this new format throughout 2025, securing up to 1,600 jobs.
Alex Simpkin, group chief executive at CDS, said he was “committed to retaining the best of Homebase’s heritage” while also introducing the “broader product range” that customers expect The Range.
He added: “While those Homebase stores acquired by CDS will continue to trade as they are during the transition period, we’re focused on ensuring a seamless transfer of these locations into our new store format.”
The firm is also investing in the Homebase brand with the relaunch of www.homebase.co.uk .
CDS already confirmed that the Homebase brand will continue to trade online.
It comes as Homebase has confirmed that six of its sites will close before the end of the year.
These include sites in Sutton Coldfield, Bromsgrove, Cromer, Fareham, Newark and Rugby.
Three more Homebase sites in Derry, Inverurie, and Omagh are also set to close in the coming months, along with a branch in Glenrothes near Fife.
At the time it entered administration, Homebase operated 141 stores.
This figure included the 10 stores acquired by Sainsbury’s prior to Homebase’s collapse.
Once all stores are closed, Sainsbury’s will convert the units into new supermarkets.
Hilco Capital, the owner of Homebase, had put the company up for sale in July.
The restructuring firm, which purchased Homebase from Wesfarmers in 2018 for £1, started the formal sale process after being approached by The Range.
Analysis by The Sun reveals that only 57 stores were not put up for sale and could have been included in CDS’ rescue plan.
However, the exact number of stores rescued by CDS still remains a mystery.
High inflation coupled with a squeeze on consumers’ finances has meant people have less money to spend in the shops.
Garden centres and home improvement businesses also boomed during the pandemic when customers were stuck at home.
But customers have been forced to cut back on spending since then due to high inflation and a national cash crunch.
This has led to prominent chains going bust or launching restructuring plans.
This includes Dobbies, which said it would close 12 stores before Christmas to help shore up extra costs.
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.
