Bargain supermarket with 800 UK branches to shut shopping centre store in just WEEKS as ‘greedy landlords’ blamed
A HIGH street discount retailer is closing down one of its popular stores, leaving shoppers furious.
Poundland, inside Liverpool's Belle Vale Shopping Centre, is set to close at the end of the month.
The much-loved chain, which has more than 800 stores around the UK, has been facing struggles recently since it first opened 35 years ago.
A Facebook post on the Belle Vale and Netherley group shared the news of the closure: "Another shop closing down.
"Good luck to the staff and hope they find another job soon.”
Respondents flooded in within minutes of the post going up and expressed their disappointment about the shut down, and sadness for the staff who would lose their jobs.
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One blamed “greedy landlords," and added: "There won't be anything left poor staff.”
Another member wrote: "Its wrong some of the workers in there have been loyal workers in there for years.
"Bellevale owners don't give a (monkeys) about the shops or the community.
“They're greedy and either want ridiculous rent and contracts or they want to force people out so they can flatten it.”
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A spokesperson for Poundland confirmed the closure would be from May 6 after having been served notice on the lease.
He said: "We know how disappointing this will be to customers and colleagues.
"Whenever we have to close a store in these circumstances, we do all we can to look for other opportunities for colleagues and that work is now underway.
"We’d like to thank customers at Belle Vale for their support – and look forward to welcoming them at our other stores across Merseyside."
This news comes after parent company Pepco revealed Poundland had faced slowing sales and profits which fell by £641million late last year.
It also follows a series of closures of Poundland stores around the UK.
Polish company, Pepco, has subsequently been looking at a potential sale of the business to focus on its European industry.
Poundland is among several retail stores facing challenges at the moment often linked to the cost-of-living crisis and shoplifting.
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."