High street retailer with 263 stores to shut shop in weeks – and it’s launched HUGE closing down sale
A MAJOR high street name is pulling the plug on one of its stores in just two weeks.
It’s already slashing prices by up to 70% to clear the shelves.
Outdoor clothing and gear giant Mountain Warehouse has confirmed its Norwich branch on London Street will shut for good, marking the end of over a year of speculation surrounding its future.
The store said its last day of trading will be on June 15, meaning shoppers have just under two weeks to visit the shop.
The writing has reportedly been on the wall since October last year, when “Closing Down” signs first appeared in the windows.
But months dragged on with no firm date in sight until now.
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Shoppers can now cash in on huge savings as the store kicks off a massive clearance sale ahead of the final day of trading.
Any leftover stock will be sent to other stores, including the nearby Haymarket branch, which is staying open.
The closure comes almost two years after Mountain Warehouse opened the much larger Haymarket site, just one street away.
At the time, bosses insisted both would continue trading, but locals say they always expected the smaller shop to get the axe.
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Posting on Facebook, one Norwich shopper said: “It was only a matter of time – you can’t have two stores that close together and expect them both to survive.”
Another added: “Sad to see it go, but I guess Haymarket makes more sense. Still going to miss it.”
It’s not the only Mountain Warehouse site to shut its doors.
Previously the retailer closed stores in Isle of Wight, Gainsborough, Basingstoke and Swindon.
The news comes as Britain’s high streets face another wave of store shutdowns, with several big-name chains reviewing their property portfolios.
Retailers have been hammered by rising rent, energy bills, and staffing costs, especially after government Budget changes hiked employer National Insurance contributions.
With footfall down in many city centres, brands are being forced to rethink expansion plans, trim their store counts, or shift focus to retail parks and online.
Here is a full list of the shops we know are shutting in June 2025.
They include, but aren't limited to, The Original Factory Shop, Poundland, and The Works.
However, store closures don’t always mean doom and gloom.
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Businesses often shut one branch in favour of another nearby that’s pulling in more trade, which is exactly what appears to have happened in Norwich.
Mountain Warehouse has been approached for comment.
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."