Soult's Retail View

Ground-floor gift department at Havens, Westcliff-on-Sea (24 Sep 2010). Photograph courtesy of Havens

The traditional, independent department store has been a fixture of the British high street for generations – yet look around, and you could be forgiven for thinking its days were numbered.

From the current … Continue Reading

Lincolnshire Co-op website (30 Jan 2013)

Just one week after Midlands Co-op announced the closure of its department stores, another Midlands-based consumer co-op – the Lincolnshire Co-operative – has revealed that it too is to exit non-food.

However, where Midlands Co-op’s … Continue Reading

Co-op department store, Chesterfield (10 Nov 2011)

Midlands Co-op has become the latest co-operative society to exit non-food, with its announcement today that eight Fashion & Home department stores are to close within six months.

Most of the affected stores are in the East Midlands, including five full-line department stores – badged as Fashion & Home – … Continue Reading

New Jacques Vert Group concession at Tamworth Co-op (21 Dec 2012)

Tamworth shoppers now have access to a raft of Jacques Vert Group womenswear brands, following the opening of a new upmarket outlet concession in the town’s Co-op department store last Saturday (22 December).

As well as the eponymous Jacques Vert brand, the first floor department also features the group’s long-established Planet, … Continue Reading

TJ Hughes, Middlesbrough (12 Sep 2012)

TJ Hughes, the discount department store chain, has announced that its Middlesbrough store will reopen next week, at 10am on Wednesday 3 October.

Under the heading ‘We’re back!”, window posters at the store have been trumpeting an ‘October 2012′ reopening for the last few weeks, but … Continue Reading

“Goodbye Sale” at Hoopers Carlisle

Hoopers, the upmarket Carlisle department store whose closure was announced in May, is to finally shut at the close of trade today (Saturday 25 August).

As reported by BBC News, notices went up instore and on the … Continue Reading

TJ Hughes, Lichfield, prior to closure (19 Mar 2010)

The confirmation that Debenhams will be opening up in Lichfield’s former TJ Hughes store in March 2013 is great news for the city, and should give a big footfall boost to neighbouring retailers.

The … Continue Reading

Hoopers, Carlisle (9 May 2012)

Talks that could result in the rescue of Hoopers department store in Carlisle are still ongoing, I understand, three months on from the announcement of the store’s likely closure.

The store, which became part of the five-strong Hoopers chain in 2006, was initially earmarked for closure on 23 … Continue Reading

Ex-TJ Hughes, Middlesbrough, prior to arrival of Metro Outlet (30 Sep 2011)

TJ Hughes is to reopen its store in Middlesbrough’s Captain Cook Square, it has been confirmed.

The move comes almost exactly a year after the store … Continue Reading

Hoopers, Carlisle (9 May 2012)

The recent news that Hoopers in Carlisle is to close is clearly a disappointing development for the city, but it’s also very sad for anyone – like me – who values the role that independent department stores play on our high streets.

Across the country, the big three department store chains … Continue Reading

Browns' iconic York store (17 Jul 2010)

Among all the retail gloom that the newspapers seem to like writing about, it was refreshing to read last week that Browns of York is to open a new department store in Gainsborough, with the creation of … Continue Reading

Existing Metro Outlet in Gateshead (25 Mar 2011)

Middlesbrough had some retail good news on Saturday, as a new store opened its doors in the town’s former TJ Hughes premises – following on from the … Continue Reading

House of Fraser (Binns), Darlington (1 Mar 2011)

It’s not one of my most well-read posts, but some of you may remember my blog from last March about the disappointing state of the toilet facilities in Darlington’s landmark House of Fraser (Binns) store.

While at first glance it might … Continue Reading

Isabel Macdonald outside her new store

Tamworth’s new John Lewis at Home opened its doors on Wednesday (12 October), eight months after I broke the news of its impending arrival.

The 42,000 sq ft shop at the edge-of-town Ventura Park is John Lewis’s sixth in the ‘at Home’ format, following the opening of stores in Poole, Croydon, Swindon (which I … Continue Reading

John Lewis fascia

As the vast Westfield Stratford City opens its doors today, it’s little wonder that most of Twitter’s retail commentators seem to have decamped to east London. With 300 stores (though not yet all open) and a floor area of 1.9m sq ft (177,000 sqm), the opening of “Europe’s largest urban shopping … Continue Reading

Newcastle's TJ Hughes (8 Aug 2011)

There was good news for Newcastle city centre earlier this week, with the announcement that the TJ Hughes store in Grainger Street had been sold, preventing the loss of 76 jobs. However, the … Continue Reading

Not what you expect in an upmarket department store

Apologies for the Richard Whiteley-style headline and the rather gruesome photograph, but if Mary Portas was looking for another retail-related programme idea she could do worse than turn her attention to customer toilet facilities – celebrating the good and exposing the horrible.

Customer loos are a staple of most department stores, and a necessity for those that … Continue Reading

John Lewis logo

No, don’t choke on your cornflakes… that’s a serious question.

My interest was piqued last month when the Tamworth Herald ran a story under the headline ”Striking design’ of unit to be built next to Herald offices’, on the town’s ever-growing Ventura Retail Park.

In it, the piece gave a few more details about … Continue Reading

John Lewis Oxford Street, London

Given how long it’s been since the weekly trading figures for John Lewis department stores last recorded a year-on-year fall in sales, it’s little wonder that the 2.2% sales drop announced today seems to be … Continue Reading

Former Woolworths (now Sports Direct), Stafford (30 Sep 2010)

The more former Woolworths stores I blog about, the more predictable it gets that I’ll be mentioning now-familiar discount names such as B&M Bargains, Home Bargains, Poundland or … Continue Reading