A MAJOR DIY retailer has confirmed that it‘s shutting one of its branches for good and it has launched a huge closing down sale.
Homebase has 144 stores across the UK, including in major cities like Leeds, London and Manchester.
It sells everything from decorating essentials, to garden furniture and lighting.
But shoppers in East Grinstead, West Sussex, will soon need to find a alternative DIY retailer as the chain is set to close its store in the town on August 16.
A massive closing down sale has now been launched at the store.
Posters and banners that said “90% off” and “everything must go”, have been plastered outside the shop’s front.
Shoppers have taken to social media to share their disappointment over the news.
One shopper posted: “It’s a shame. Very handy having them in town.”
Another wrote: “Very sad to see Homebase go. A very useful store and great plant/gardening section.”
A third cried: “It’s a real shame they are going. I used to like getting plants from there and we would get our Xmas trees there every year.
“I know there are other garden centres around but there’s a massive difference in prices.”
And a fourth added: “I’ll be lost without it.”
The announcement of the East Grinstead closure comes after Homebase confirmed it would shutter three other branches.
The DIY chain is closing a store in Northampton later this year.
The shop in the Riverside Retail Park will welcome in customers for the final time on September 6.
It is understood the closure comes as the landlord plans to transform the site into two separate units.
Homebase also revealed it will be closing its store in Cambridge Retail Park on September 13.
The retailer has previously confirmed that it will be pulling down the shutters on its branch in Ledbury in 2025.
This is also due to the lease coming to an end and a new one not being agreed with the landlord.
A lease gives you the right to use a property for business for a set period of time.
The DIY retailer also pulled down the shutters on its store in Brentford in April.
The site is being redeveloped into housing.
Homebase was taken over by Hilco Capital in 2018, and has since closed almost 100 stores.
Hilco bought the hardware store chain for £1 from Australian firm Wesfarmers, which paid £340million for what has been dubbed one of the “most disastrous takeovers ever seen”.
Wesfarmers is known for its Bunnings chain in Australia. It attempted to transform Homebase into its own DIY brand.
Prior to the takeover, Homebase had 250 stores at its peak with around 12,000 staff.
But Homebase soon returned to profit after it entered a CVA agreement and restructured its business.
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. 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.
Boss Stuart Machin recently said that when it relocated a tired store in Chesterfield to a new big store in a retail park half a mile away, its sales in the area rose by 103 per cent.
In some cases, stores have been shut when a retailer goes bust, as in the case of Wilko, Debenhams Topshop, Dorothy Perkins and Paperchase 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.