A List of Stores Closing in the UK in 2024

Updated: Feb 7, 2024By Audrey KyanovaBusiness

This article originally appeared on Investing.com. It has been republished here with permission.

©Allen Creative / Steve Allen/Alamy

If you walk down Britain’s High Street, you’ll see a bevvy of stores opening up, offering new promotions and sales. But these days, you’ll also see an endless string of closures. Around 17,000 retail stores shut their doors in the U.K. in 2022, and there will likely be more to come in 2023.

There are different reasons for the closures, such as deals with landlords falling through, rent increases, or strategic corporate decisions to cut costs. Whatever the reason, it’s important to know what’s closing down so you can plan (and shop) accordingly.

1. Next

Year Established: 1864
Store Closures: 200*

Clothing and footwear retailer Next was founded in 1864 in Leeds. Its founder, Joseph Hepworth, was a pioneer in the retail chain industry who expanded the company to one-hundred outlets. Next got its start in the ready-to-wear suit market before expanding to offer other products.

Next fashion and homewares shop ©Mara Louvain/stock.adobe.com

The High Street giant ended up having around six hundred stores at its peak. It announced in 2023 that it had hit a rough patch—a punishing 7.6% drop in sales. It predicted another 1.5% slump in profits to come. Next announced it would close 200 stores back in 2020, with closures taking place across the country and it seems that downward spiral is continuing into 2023 and 2024.

2. Thomas Cook

Year Established: 2008
Store Closures: 600*

Thomas Cook is a popular travel company that has stores across the UK designed to help people determine where to go on vacation. A few years ago, Thomas Cook announced rit would be closing down 21 stores and cutting a total of 320 jobs.

Thomas Cook © Electric Egg / Shutterstock.com

The company said it was making the cuts as part of an efficiency program for the store, cutting underperformers and streamlining the rest. Cook also found a buyer for 555 of its stores: Hays Travel. Hays announced that it saw a “bright future” for Thomas Cook and hoped to minimize job loss for the company. Currently, much of Thomas Cook’s sales are online, as, in the past few years, the travel company has had to shut down its in-person branches.

3. Sainsbury’s

Year Established: 1869
Store Closures: 34* (Argos)

Sainsbury’s is a large department store that offers pretty much everything, from clothing to groceries to home goods. Sainsbury’s is popular in the UK, and it is the second-largest supermarket in the UK.

Sainsbury's © pxl.store / Shutterstock.com

Despite this success, Sainsbury’s hasn’t been able to stave off store closures. It, along with Argos, announced in 2019 that it would close a total of 125 stores. Fifty-five of these would be Sainsbury’s stores, and the closures would begin in 2019 and carry on until 2024. In January of 2023, Sainsbury’s announced that its subsidiary, Argos, was leaving Ireland and that it was losing 237 of its LLoydsPharmacy stores, too.

4. Tesco

Year Established: 1919
Store Closures: TBD

Supermarket Tesco is one of the most popular in the UK, and it has had a lot of shakeups in its financial past. Tesco announced in 2019 that it was closing 153 branches in August. This affected 4,500 jobs alone. Tesco also shut down is food counters, making in-store deli counter closures across the UK.

Tesco ©Tana888 / Shutterstock.com

It also has shut down other stores in Poland and will continue to shut down “loss-making” stores for the foreseeable future. As of the beginning of 2023, Tesco has had a huge management shakeup, confirming further redundancies later in the year. It remains to be seen how many stores will close.

5. B&Q

Year Established: 1969
Store Closures: 8*

Shoppers at ASDA have likely noted that B&Q, a popular U.K. DIY chain, is a mainstay there. Alas, the chain announced in the beginning of 2023 that it planned to shut down eight of its Asda store concessions within a span of a few weeks.

B&Q © Craig Russell / Shutterstock.com

Thankfully, staffers at B&Q were offered alternative roles in other, nearby stores, so no jobs were lost. B&Q explained to customers that it decided to shutter eight of its shops after an “intensive review” of its “test format.”

6. Barclays

Year Established: 1690
Store Closures: 15*

Founded in 1690, Barclays is one of the oldest businesses in the U.K., and it brings in revenue of $25 billion a year as of 2022. That said, Barclays is not immune to closures, and even the banking conglomerate has to make some tough decisions.

Barclays © Electric Egg / Shutterstock.com

The company announced that it was planning to close fifteen of its branches across Wales and England. In total, 100 banks will be shut down so far in 2023. The 15 branches (one in Wales and the rest in England) will close in the spring of this year.

7. TK Maxx

Year Established: 1994
Store Closures: 1-5*

Both TK Maxx and Homesense are closing down stores, in part because of issues with landlords. For example, an Edinburgh site shut down in early 2023 because its landlord pulled the lease.

TK Maxx ©Sergey Kohl / Shutterstock.com

Similarly, expect several Homesense sites, including ones in Manchester, Swansea, and more to close by the end of March of 2023. TK Maxx and Homesense are not immune, it seems to the rising increase in the cost of living in the U.K.

8. Lloyds Pharmacies

Year Established: 1973
Store Closures: 240-260*

Lloyds Pharmacy branches are on their way out, a change that some feel could “wake up ministers” to the “funding crisis” community pharmacies are facing. Lloyds is the second-largest U.K. pharmaceutical chain behind boots, boasting 1,300 shops.

Lloyds Pharmacies ©John Sainsbury / shutterstock.com

Lloyds is shutting down 237 of its Sainsbury supermarket shops by the end of 2023, but those are not the only closures. Lloyds is planning to shutter its locations in Northumberland, Sunderland, Newcastle, and County Durham, too.

9. Frankie & Benny’s

Year Established: 1995
Store Closures: 28*

Frankie & Benny’s is a family-favorite restaurant chain that has gone through a lot of closures in the past three years. Its parent company announced in 2020 that it would close around 100 restaurants in the U.K.

Frankie & Benny’s ©Ceri Breeze / shutterstock.com

Then, in 2023, it was announced that 30% of Frankie & Benny’s restaurants would close, a number of around 28. Apparently, the U.K.’s well-publicized cost of living crisis has caused widening financial losses, and Frankie & Benny’s is just another victim of downsizing to streamline operations and profits.

10. Chiquito

Year Established: 1989
Store Closures: 20*

The Restaurant Group is the owner of Chiquito, a Mexican food chain that is popular in the U.K. Much like the other brands under TRG’s management, Chiquito is facing closures due to the skyrocketing cost of living in the U.K.

Chiquito ©Electric Egg / shutterstock.com

The chain is going to downsize by 30%, which means total closures of around twenty restaurants. Fans are disappointed, as, for many, Chiquito was a local hangout spot. “The Original Mexican Grill & Bar,” as it’s known, could close even more than 30% if costs continue to rise, but that remains to be seen.

11. H&M

Year Established: 1947
Store Closures: 8*

The Swedish-based clothing store H&M is popular around the world, but that doesn’t mean that this retail giant is immune to downturns in foot traffic. In January of 2023, H&M announced that it would be closing branches in County Durham, Maidenhead, Berkshire, Isle of Wight, Newport, Staffordshire, Hartlepool, and Burton.

The business confirmed the closures on January 31^st, blaming the shutdowns on a “rapid change in customer behavior” (i.e. a downturn in sales). The U.K. has almost 200 H&M stores, but these eight just weren’t performing the way the clothing giant wanted.

12. Gap

Year Established: 1999 (Gap UK)
Store Closures: 81*

Gap became part of the U.K.’s clothing retail market in the late 1990s, and it held on for more than twenty years until announcing in 2021 that it would be shutting down all of its company-operated stores (both Gaps and Gap Outlets) in the U.K. and Ireland.

These closures were fully completed in September of 2021, but that’s not the full story. Gap has slowly, as of 2022, begun to make a comeback, though not all of its stores are reopening. Its 2023 future is shaky, as Gap has had to re-adapt to the U.K. market to get shoppers back through the doors.

13. Amazon

Year Established: 1994
Store Closures: 3*

Amazon went from a small bookseller in the 1990s to a massive, multinational corporation that is one of the most ubiquitous in the world. Amazon has warehouses across the globe, and it opens new ones and shuts down old ones in the blink of an eye.

Amazon ©Cascade Creatives / shutterstock.com

In January of 2023, Amazon announced that it was going to shut down three of its warehouses in Doncaster, Hemel Hempstead, and Gourock, putting an end to 1,200 jobs. That said, the company is planning to open a couple of new fulfillment centers in those areas, so, hopefully, laid-off employees will be rehired there.

14. Pizza Hut

Year Established: 1958
Store Closures: 30*

Pizza Hut UK is the United Kingdom’s branch of the popular American restaurant chain, though it hasn’t found the same success as it has in the U.S. Pizza Hut UK closed down 29 restaurants after the company’s creditors voted through an agreement to attempt to save the business in 2020.

Pizza Hut ©Claudio Divizia / shutterstock.com

Two years later, Pizza Hut UK, while still in business in the country, is not out of the woods. It announced that it was going to shut down its Station Road, Sticklepath branch in early 2023. This shows that the decline has continued, with Pizza Hut UK slowly shutting down more and more restaurants.