Major high street brands to close over 30 sites this week – is your local going?

This year has seen hundreds of popular shops disappear from the main street, with more than 30 due to close this week alone.

Over the past few weeks, major chains have announced closures, including Boots, Iceland and B&M.

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Food chains and pubs have also closed at some locations across the country, such as the Wetherspoons pub.

It comes after a tumultuous period for businesses struggling to recover from Covid and then facing growing energy bills.

Given the high costs for shoppers, that means people have cut back on unnecessary things and prices continue to soar.

Many consumers have also turned to online shopping, meaning brick-and-mortar stores are struggling.

This has had a similar impact on banks, with customers shifting to online and mobile banking, resulting in major lenders shutting down hundreds of websites.

Among the chains that closed this week were New Look, Lloyds Pharmacy and Barclays.

Here’s the full list of high street chain closures this week.

Boots

Boots will also begin closing the first of 300 stores this week.

The popular drugstore chain has confirmed the locations of nine stores that will close permanently.

This is part of a broader closure plan that will reduce the chain’s store count from 2,200 to 1,900.

Boots has confirmed that all employees working at these locations will be assigned alternate roles.

Two locations closed for a few days were Heathside Road in Woking and the UEA campus branch.

Both are scheduled to close at the “end of July”.

Iceland

Iceland will close another supermarket in the coming days.

The frozen food specialist has closed more than half a dozen stores since February.

Currently, there are around 800 Icelandic branches across the UK.

Its location in St David’s Place, Swansea will close its shutters on July 29.

It comes after 11 supermarkets in Iceland closed earlier this year, with more to come in the next few months.

Lloyds

Also closing branches this week is Lloyds, which will close shutters at three locations.

The first facility will close tomorrow and is the Chapeltown site.

Tuesday only, Lloyds will also close Holloway Road in London on July 25.

Next up is the Carlton branch on July 26.

Fresh Amazon

Amazon is set to close two stores today as it prepares to open two new locations.

The e-commerce giant is permanently closing its Ealing, Wandsworth and East Sheen branches today.

The company said it would open new Fresh stores in Moorgate and Liverpool Street, London, but did not confirm the exact time.

The Ealing Store, opening in March 2021, is Amazon’s first UK grocery store and covers 2,500 square feet.

Barclays

Banking giant Barclays is also set to close five sites just this week.

It comes after the bank reported more than 60 branches will leave the high street for the rest of this year.

The bank has also closed hundreds of locations, with another 14 announced last week.

Both Heathfield and Barnsley branches will close on July 26.

While Portadown, Market Harborough and Kingsland High Street locations will also be closed on July 28.

Asda

Asda, which has more than 600 branches nationwide, will close two Asda Living stores this summer.

Its branch at Island Green Retail Park, Wrexham, will close on July 31.

The Asda Living store in Eastgate Retail Park, Bristol, will also close this summer, but the exact date has yet to be confirmed.

A spokesperson for the supermarket giant previously said the stores had “run at a loss for years”.

Asda Living stores sell a wide range of furniture, electronics, toys, home appliances as well as health and beauty products.

There are 33 of these stores across the UK, including in Maidstone, Lincoln and Leeds.

northwest

NatWest is closing four branches this week alone.

This also follows further closures and announcements of closures of locations later this summer.

These include Dorking and March, both of which will close on July 25.

This weekend, its Peterborough site is on July 26, while its Tamworth branch will close on July 27.

New interface

New Look will close more stores before the end of July.

The brand will close its store at Rhyl’s White Rose Center on Tuesday, July 25, according to local news reports.

It comes after a post on the New Look Rhyl Facebook page announced a massive sale.

The fashion retailer has closed several stores this year after closing 85 branches in 2018.

RBS

There will also be a Royal Bank of Scotland closure this week.

The Bank of Scotland will shut down its Tranet website on July 27.

Lloyds drugstore

Other branches of Lloyds Pharmacy will close over the next few days, following a string of closures.

The closing locations are all in Sainsbury’s stores.

These are Sainsbury’s Oxford Road, Kidlington today (July 23) and Sainsbury’s St Ann Way, Gloucester on July 24.

Lloyds has announced the closure of 237 pharmacies in Sainsbury’s supermarkets by the end of the year and the closure of 76 stores by 2022.

Habitat

Housewares giant Habitat will disappear from the high street at the end of the month as it closes its last three independent stores.

The three branches in Brighton, Leeds and Westfield of White City, London, will close permanently.

Even so, the retailer has yet to confirm the exact date the three branches will close.

Sainsbury’s, which owns the Habitat brand, said it would seek to redeploy all affected store staff in its own supermarkets or Argos stores.

HSBC

HSBC customers have also moved more to online services in recent years.

As a result, the chain is set to close dozens of branches, with many already closing this year.

On July 25, five HSBC locations will close permanently: Christchurch, Seaford, Tonbridge, Blackwood (Wales) and Norwich.

Customers can still use one of the Post Office’s 11,635 branches for basic banking tasks — but not open new bank accounts or get personal loans and mortgages.

Bank of Scotland

Bank of Scotland will also be among the high street chain closure sites this week.

The goodbye locations are all located in Scotland.

These include the Bearsden branch on July 25 and Edinburgh on July 26.

Next this will be the location of the Pollokshields on July 27.

Meanwhile, another 44 banks will close by the end of this year and through 2024.

Also, here’s the full list of stores closing this summer.

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