New Look in St Austell to close for good

New Look in St Austell has announced it will close in March 2025
-Credit:Lisa Letcher / CornwallLive


High street fashion brand New Look has announced that at least one of its three Cornwall stores will close for good. The company revealed last month that about a quarter of its 364 UK stores are at risk of closure when their leases expire.

This equates to about 91 stores, with a significant impact on its 8,000 strong workforce. The company has restructured its store estate twice in the past six years, reducing its portfolio from around 600 UK stores in 2018.

While for the time being, stores remain open as usual, and no final decisions regarding closures have been made, at least one store in Cornwall has confirmed it will shut down next month. New Look in White River, St Austell, has put up a sign in its window warning shoppers that it is shutting.

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The sign, complete with a QR code that shoppers can scan to continue shopping with New Look online, reads: "St Austell, thanks for having us. But it's time to say goodbye. This store will be closing on Tuesday, March 4."

The company's other Cornish stores are in Truro and Falmouth.

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Analysts believe that retailers such as new Look and others will be speeding up any closure plans ahead of the new financial year in April when changes announced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves kick in.

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From April, employers will be charged national insurance at a rate of 15 per cent, up from 13.8 per cent, and the threshold at which they begin to pay the tax has been lowered from £9,100 to £5,000. Meanwhile, the minimum wage is rising by 6.7 per cent to £12.21 an hour and the retail industry’s business rates bill will go up by £140 million from April.

In 2018, the fashion brand traded from almost 600 stores in the UK. Since then, the retailer has overhauled its store estate twice and now has just 364 outlets - all on relatively short leases that link rents to store turnover.

At the time of the Budget Autumn Statement, the British Retail Consortium predicted that these changes could create a £2.3 billion bill for the retail sector.

"A New Look spokesperson said: "On occasion we do have to close stores, either due to the landlord's request or because the site becomes unviable. However, we always remain on the lookout for appropriate new opportunities across the country and continue to invest in our existing store estate."

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