A MAJOR high street bakery chain has suddenly closed another store, after shutting 170 branches across the country.
The news was confirmed on a window notice at the shuttered store, leaving loyal customers shocked.
A Patisserie Valerie in Kent has announced it is closing (stock photo)[/caption]
The chain is famed for its cakes and pastries[/caption]
Patisserie Valerie in Maidstone, Kent, thanked locals for their support – and made a cryptic reference to a potential return.
The message read: “We would like to take this time to take this opportunity to thank you for your support over the years, and we look forward to returning to Maidstone as soon as possible.”
The Belgian chain is famed for its luxurious cakes, pastries and coffee.
As well as running physical bakeries, it also stocks its sweet treats in various supermarkets including Sainsbury’s.
The company opened its first branch in London in 1926, before rapidly expanding to almost 200 across the country – with 3,000 employees.
But it fell into administration in 2019, and was forced shut more than 170 bakeries.
Since then, further stores have also announced closures – including High Wycombe’s Eden Shopping Centre branch in January last year.
A Patisserie Valerie in Nottingham city centre followed suit a few months later – with a handwritten note on the front door announcing that it had been “permanently closed”.
The closure prompted a wave of locals to bemoan the state of the high street, with one writing: “Nottingham is becoming one awful ghost city.”
And another said: “Another one gone.”
Patisserie Valerie is not the only business to struggle with rising costs in recent weeks.
This week, another bakery, Palmers Bakery, in Stanton near Bury St Edmunds, also confirmed it would be shutting its doors in just a few weeks’ time – after 155 years of business.
RETAIL SECTOR STRUGGLES
The retail sector has been hit hard in recent years as the trend towards online shopping intensifies.
The most recent data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) shows online retail sales increased from 5% of all retail sales in 2008 to 27% in 2022.
Shoppers have also been feeling the pinch in recent years following sky-high inflation which has dented their wallets and purses.
It has led to a number of major retailers having to close stores to shore up their finances.
Boots announced in 2023 it would shut 300 of its branches in a bid to slim down its high street presence while WHSmith is in talks to sell off 500 of its stores.
Jewellery chains have been forced into closing branches as well.
Claire’s has closed a number of stores in recent years, including in Gillingham, Nuneaton and Newton Abbott.
T H Baker also shuttered a branch in Cambridge in May last year.
Why are retailers closing shops?
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.
The British Retail Consortium has predicted that the Treasury’s hike to employer NICs from April 2025, will cost the retail sector £2.3billion.
At the same time, the minimum wage will rise to £12.21 an hour from April, and the minimum wage for people aged 18-20 will rise to £10 an hour, an increase of £1.40.
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.
In some cases, stores have been shut when a retailer goes bust, as in the case of Carpetright, Debenhams, Dorothy Perkins, Paperchase, Ted Baker, The Body Shop, Topshop and Wilko 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.
The Centre for Retail Research (CRR) has warned that around 17,350 retail sites are expected to shut down this year.
The closure is yet another blow for the local high street (stock photo)[/caption]
