A MAJOR fashion chain is set to close 35 branches within weeks, in the latest blow to the high street.
Select Fashion will cull the affordable clothing stores over the coming weeks, with the majority of sites expected to cease trading by the middle of March.
The locations shutting include sites across Southampton, Eastleigh, Bletchley, Cowley and Hartlepool, The Sun has learned.
Select – which is owned by Turkish entrepreneur Cafer Mahiroğlu – has been quietly reducing its store portfolio since January.
Now fresh documents, shared with The Sun, detail how a total of 35 stores will shutter across February and March.
Just a few weeks ago The Sun revealed how staff were told up to 12 stores would close.
These included sites in Southshields, Peterlee, Thornaby, Hartlepool Scarborough Hull Hessle Hull, St Stephens, Ashington and Scunthorpe.
These locations are also included in the list of 35 stores set to close by March 15.
This is on top of a string of closures made by the brand last year.
It comes after the British fashion brand, best known for selling trendy clothing at a low cost, 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.
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.
The list of stores include:
- Runcorn
- Ashton-under-Lyne
- Accrington
- Preston
- Birkenhead
- Thornby
- Middlesbrough
- Hull Hessle
- Ashington
- Scunthorpe
- Peterlee
- Hull St Stephen’s
- Scarborough
- Hatfield
- Wellingborough
- Witham
- Bristol Broadmead
- Bristol Broadwalk Shopping Centre
- Torquay
- Newport
- Eastleigh
- Southampton
- Chippenham
- Port Talbot
- Merthyr Tydfil
- Hemel Hampstead
- Worksop
- South Shields
- Coalville
- Kidderminster
- Crewe
- Bletchley
- Wolverhampton
- Hartlepool
- Cowley
It is understood just 48 Select stores will remain trading after the closures have taken place.
Before its administration in 2019, the chain which has been on the high street for nearly four decades, had a total of 169 stores.
The Sun has approached Select for comment.
Select’s string of closures has come as a blow for locals in impacted areas.
One Worksop local shared their devastation over the news, sharing that the store was the “only decent clothes shop left.”
Meanwhile, residents in Eastleigh and Southampton will have to bid farewell to their local Select store after less than two years.
The brand only opened in the neighbouring areas back in October 2023.
Today’s 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.
TROUBLE ON THE HIGH STREET
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.
More recently, Quiz Clothing called in administrators just days after its shares were removed from the London Stock Exchange.
The development is expected to result in the closure of 23 undisclosed stores, with approximately 200 employees anticipated to be made redundant, according to Sky News.
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.”
