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High street fashion chain with 105 stores to shut 12 branches in weeks
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A HIGH STREET fashion chain with 105 stores will shut 12 branches in a matter of weeks.
Select Fashion will close a dozen of its branches over the coming weeks, with the majority of shops impacted in the North East of England.
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The locations shutting include sites across Peterlee, Southshields and Ashington and follow several closures by the branch last year, The Sun can reveal.
It comes after the British fashion brand - owned by Turkish entrepreneur Cafer Mahiroğlu - fell into administration in 2019.
At the time, the retailer blamed tough conditions on the high street and was later bought out of administration by Genus UK Limited.
Recent filings on Companies House - the UK's register of businesses - show Select Fashion entered into a Company Voluntary Arrangement (CVA) last summer.
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A CVA is a way of restructuring that means a business can continue trading by negotiating its debts, such as cutting rent costs with landlords.
It is a common way for struggling businesses to try and stay afloat, with chains such as Caffe Nero and Body Shop having previously entered into one.
Documents, seen by The Sun, detail how personnel were told a total of 12 stores would shutter across February and March.
The list of stores include:
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- Southshields
- Peterlee
- Thornaby
- Hartlepool
- Scarborough
- Hull Hessle
- Hull St Stephens
- Ashington
- Scunthorpe
Select has already made a string of closures this month, including sites in Wolverhampton and Kidderminster.
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These branches both closed at the start of January.
Its location in Scunthorpe was also marked for closure in January.
Select's Merthyr Tydfil store in Wales will close in March along with the Wellingborough store on March 15.
The Wiltshire branch in Chippenham is also closing down.
The Sun has approached Select Fashion for comment.
Select's string of closures has come as a blow for locals in impacted areas.
Scunthorpe residents described the move as another "nail in the coffin" for the area, which has been plagued by closures including Argos, which shut last year.
These reports also follow a barrage of closures made by the bargain fashion store last year.
Bosses decided to call time on its Ipswich, Kent, and Cwmbran branches in 2024.
Select also closed its branch in the Erith Riverside Shopping Centre in London.
The bargain retailer, which has been on the high street for nearly four decades, has around 105 stores still up and running.
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Plenty of other retailers are closing stores across the high street as households lean more towards online shopping and amid high business rates.
Soaring inflation in recent years has also dented shoppers' pockets.
The Centre for Retail Research's latest analysis suggests 13,479 stores, the equivalent of 37 each day, shut for good in 2024.
Of those, 11,341 were independent shops while 2,138 were shut by larger retailers.
The data also showed over half the stores that closed last year were shut due to the store or retailer going through insolvency proceedings.
This is when formal measures are taken to deal with tackling a business's debt.
Retailers are shutting stores in 2025 too.
For example, New Look is ramping up a store closure programme ahead of April's National Insurance hike.
Approximately a quarter of the retailer's 364 stores are at risk when their leases expire.
This equates to about 91 stores, with a significant impact on it's 8,000 strong workforce.
The company has restructured its store estate twice in the past six years, reducing its portfolio from around 600 UK stores in 2018.
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For the time being, stores remain open as usual, and no final decisions regarding closures have been made.
Recently, New Look has confirmed that its branch in Porth, Rhondda Cynon Taf, will shut its doors for good this month.
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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