Main entrance of The Range, Stockton-on-Tees (31 Jul 2010)

Yesterday I finally paid a visit – by car – to the former Big W on Portrack Lane in Stockton-on-Tees, having twice failed to find a way of getting there by bus from Stockton High Street. Since April this year, the premises have housed a branch of the home, leisure and garden retailer The Range.

Of the 33 North East Woolworths stores that closed following the company’s collapse, this is the 32nd one that I’ve visited and photographed. Something tells me a trip to Berwick-upon-Tweed will be engineered before the summer’s out.

The Range, Stockton (31 Jul 2010)

The site of Portrack’s Lane old Woolies has had quite an elaborate history. For many years, since the 1960s, the premises housed the iconic North East home and garden retailer Dickens. Badging itself as “the home improvement hypermarket”, Dickens was a pioneer of the out-of-town DIY superstore, with its advertising in the 1970s claiming that there was “nothing else like it in the country.”

In the 1980s and 90s, Dickens expanded beyond its Portrack Lane site to become a familiar site across the North East, opening stores at Shiremoor, Washington, Scotswood and Darlington. However, Dickens’ store estate proved highly attractive to its expanding competitors, and the retailer was bought out by B&Q in April 1999. The newer sites were all intended to be converted to the B&Q fascia (though Shiremoor was, I believe, later sold on to Boundary Mill Stores instead) but the presence of an existing B&Q Warehouse nearby meant that the Stockton site was surplus to requirements.

In those days, however, B&Q was owned by Kingfisher – the retail conglomerate that also included Woolworths, Comet and Superdrug – making the Stockton site an ideal location for one of the first wave of Big W superstores. The 100,000 sq ft Big W store opened in October 2000; by 2004, however – as I blogged about previously – the Big W concept had already been scrapped. Just as the Tamworth Big W store was split in two, others in the 21-strong chain were also earmarked for downsizing.

Between 2004 and its eventual closure on 30 December 2008, I’m not entirely clear whether part of the Stockton Big W was simply closed off, or whether the full floorspace continued to be used. Certainly, by the time it closed, the store was trading as Woolworths, and featured various concessions such as Peacocks. I’m sure there will be a Soult’s Retail View reader who can fill in the gaps for us.

Whatever the score was with Woolies, The Range apparently occupies 60,000 sq ft, meaning that there must be 40,000 sq ft going spare somewhere. Certainly, it’s clear from the outside of the property that not all of it is in use. The Range has reclad the section that it occupies, replacing Woolies’ white and red appearance with its own blue and orange scheme. However, the apparently unoccupied section remains untouched, as can be seen in the shot below.

The join of old and new (31 Jul 2010)

Get a little closer, and you can see that an old roof-mounted Woolworths (or Big W?) sign remains in place, highlighting the store’s ranges – clothes, toys, home, baby, cards, party, entertainment, confectionery and gifts.

Old Woolworths or Big W signage remains in place (31 Jul 2010)

Underneath, there’s also still a sign for the long-gone ‘Big Cafe’.

Big Cafe sign at Stockton's former Big W (31 Jul 2010)

However, my visit was not intended to be just a Woolies nostalgia trip – I was also curious to visit The Range for the first time, given that the Stockton store is the chain’s first in the North East.

On this blog, you may recall that my only previous mention of The Range was two months ago, when the chain’s owner, Chris Dawson, was reportedly interested in buying up some of the stores and stock of the collapsed Vergo Retail empire. For whatever reason, nothing came of that in the end, and all the Vergo stores apart from Robbs in Hexham, which was bought by Beales, were subsequently closed. Even without that transaction, however, The Range has been expanding aggressively in the last eighteen months, with 45 stores now compared to the 33 that it had in February last year.

The Range, Stockton (31 Jul 2010)

My first impression on entering the Stockton store was quite how massive it was. It may be only a portion of the old Big W, but it’s still plenty of space to accommodate quite extensive ranges across many categories, with crafts, gardening, stationery, homewares, furniture, DIY, pet supplies, toys and camping among the various departments featured.

I was also quite impressed by the quality of the store environment and merchandising, with everything much smarter and better organised than I’d perhaps expected. Recalling a visit to the Tamworth Big W not long after it opened, you might say that The Range is, in many ways, Big W’s obvious successor – stocking similar categories but arguably making a better job of filling the vast space and making it work.

Visiting an hour before closing time on Saturday, The Range seemed to be doing decent business, with plenty of cars in the car park and people laden with purchases in the store itself. Assuming that the Stockton branch is a success, it’s hard to imagine that more North East branches of The Range won’t follow, though there must be relatively few existing units that are of sufficient size.

Who knows, perhaps The Range could consider taking over all or part of the 120,000 sq ft former ILVA and Marks & Spencer Lifestore site in Gateshead, which has sat empty for the last two years? After housing two ill-fated furniture and homewares stores – that were both beautiful, but ultimately too expensive – The Range could be the more populist retailer that is needed to finally make that unit work.

Closing down sale at Robbs in Hexham (30 May 2010)

As the uncertainty over the future of the Vergo Retail store empire continues, potential suitors for some of the stores are starting to emerge. Here are the latest happenings…

In Liverpool’s Ranelagh Street, Lewis’s department store closed for good at the end of trade yesterday, bringing an end to a 154-year-old institution. Its closure had already been announced in February, prior to Vergo’s administration, to allow for the redevelopment of the iconic Lewis’s building. I hope to cover the history of Lewis’s in more detail in a future blog.

Of the remaining stores, the administrators MCR have already closed one, in Dovercourt, while closing down procedures are now underway at the other 18. However, MCR have confirmed that “discussions are ongoing with a number of different parties wishing to acquire part or all of the business”. As far as I understand, firm closure dates are yet to be announced for any of the remaining stores; certainly, when I walked past Robbs in Hexham yesterday it had the ubiquitous ‘Store Closing’ signs up, but not yet the dreaded countdown announcing the number of days left before closure. 

Coverage in the Hexham Courant, 28 May 2010

Following the earlier news that department store operator Beales had lodged “formal notice of interest” in buying Robbs, the front page of Friday’s Hexham Courant reports that the deal “could soon be clinched”. Beales’ Chief Executive Tony Brown has apparently visited Robbs, and is quoted as saying that his company is “continuing to pursue” its interest, and is “still in talks with both the landlord and the administrators”. For the third week in a row, there’s also a quote from someone called Graham Soult… I guess he’d better enjoy the exposure while it lasts!

The potential Beales takeover has also been noted by Drapers, writing that “independent department store chain Beales has been linked to a number of the higher profile stores such as Robbs of Hexham and Derrys in Plymouth.” 

Store closing banner at Robbs (30 May 2010)

On that subject, The Herald newspaper in Plymouth quotes local entrepreneur Chris Dawson – owner of The Range chain of home, garden and leisure stores – as saying that he is “interested in a few of the stores, parts of the group and all of the stock”, the implication being that he may step in to take over Derrys in Plymouth or – perhaps more likely, given The Range’s lack of a fashion offer – some of the South West-based Homemaker stores.

Described by Retail Week as “colourful”, Dawson’s record of buying up the stock of collapsed retailers such as Empire Direct and MFI is not to everyone’s taste, recognised in him jokingly styling himself as the “grim reaper”. However, it’s difficult to argue with Dawson’s success as a retail entrepreneur, with The Range now expanded to 45 stores (up from 33 in February last year) including its first in the North East, recently opened up in the former Big W unit in Portrack Lane, Stockton-on-Tees.

As yet, I’m not aware of any particular rumours involving Vergo’s stores in the east of England. However, the Norwich Evening News has reported^{[broken link removed]} on how Vergo’s collapse has affected one local couple who had paid £900 for bedroom furniture from the Norwich department store, but who may not now receive their order or their money back.

They are, unfortunately, far from alone – the Evening News’s story very much echoes an email that I received from Tony, asking what he should do about the £500 pram that his daughter had ordered and paid for from Derrys in Plymouth, but not received.

As I suggested to Derek, the best place to start if you are an outstanding customer of Vergo Retail is to visit the Vergo page of the MCR website, which includes advice on how to proceed, including a downloadable ‘Outstanding Orders Form’.