Grays Inn Road entrance to former High Holborn Woolworths (5 Apr 2011)

Sometimes I wish I was able to clone my blogging self, in order to have more time to write about all the topics that I’d love to cover.

For example, following on from my first-day reactions to the Retail London Conference, there are still quite a few things from the second day of speakers – including ex-Tesco CEO Sir Terry Leahy – that I want to address in the coming days.

Meanwhile, the news of Beales’ transformational purchase of 19 Westgate department stores from Anglia Co-op (ARCS), which broke while I was at the conference, is also definitely worth a blog, and has major implications for several North East towns: Redcar and Bishop Auckland, where Beales is acquiring the existing Westgate stores; Hartlepool and Blyth, where ARCS is keeping its Westgate stores – for now – as part of a rump department store estate; and even Hexham, where Beales already owns Robbs. More from me on all that, I hope, early next week.

Howard Saunders at the Retail London Conference

On the topic of Retail London, I was interested to see Howard Saunders from Echochamber kick off his speech on day two – about the retail implications of the global recession – with a photo of a closed-down Woolworths, joking that it was the first thing visitors saw when they came to London.

His remark raised a laugh, of course, and there’s little doubt that images of shuttered Woolworths stores have become one of the most poignant and symbolic illustrations of the current economic slowdown.

However, despite being the Woolies nerd that I am, I held my tongue and refrained from pointing out that (1) even by August last year, a reported 81% of ex-Woolies sites in Greater London had found new occupants and that (2) unless visitors were planning on venturing out of central London, they’d be hard-pressed to find a recently-closed Woolworths anyway. Still, there’s no need to let the facts get in the way of an amusing anecdote…

Former Woolworths (now Waitrose) in Edgware Road (14 May 2010)

As you would expect, I used my spare time while in London to track down some more of those long-gone Central London Woolies sites. Regular readers may recall that in May last year, I snapped the former Woolworths in Edgware Road (#2031, now Waitrose), which managed to survive until June 2008, following it up in September with visits to the former Woolies in Victoria (#800, now Argos) and Kensington High Street (#162, now Uniqlo), both of which closed in the early 1980s.

Most recently, in November, I returned to Kensington and tracked down the original store #162, further along the street, as well as capturing the former Oxford Street flagship (#161, now Uniqlo), the old Woolies in Brompton Road, near Harrods (#391, now Boots), and what I hoped was the long-closed store at High Holborn (#173).

Grays Inn Road entrance to former High Holborn Woolworths (5 Apr 2011)

My first task this time was to return to High Holborn, to follow up reader Gabriella Coscia’s feedback after my initial visit. While Gabriella was able to confirm that I had indeed identified the correct property, she revealed that the building had been reclad rather than “pulled down” as 100thBirthday.co.uk had claimed. Furthermore, she pointed out that I’d missed the old side entrance around the corner in Grays Inn Road, with Argos now occupying a part of the building that hadn’t been externally remodelled since Woolworths’ departure.

Sure enough, the Argos section of the building has ‘former Woolies’ written all over it, with its distinctive black stall riser and white tiled steps – quite a surprising survival for a store that closed as Woolworths in 1984. While there, I also crossed over to the opposite side of the road to get a better shot of the reclad High Holborn frontage.

Former High Holborn Woolworths (5 Apr 2011)

According to Gabriella, Woolies occupied the portion of the building that now houses Dorothy Perkins (previously Richards), Holland & Barrett (previously Clinton Cards) and Thorntons, as well as obviously the Argos section round the corner. Reed and Robert Dyas, however, were apparently trading from their locations while Woolworths was still open, meaning that the Woolies store must have been basically L-shaped at ground-floor level.

Former Woolworths (?) (now Paperchase), Tottenham Court Road (6 Apr 2011)

Continuing on to Tottenham Court Road, we have an ex-Woolies whose precise location – or even existence – seems to be a pretty hazy memory, judging from some of the online discussions about it.

Thanks to the trusty New Bond, we know that there definitely was a Woolies store in Tottenham Court Road, as it’s referred to in my copy of the December 1958 issue. It was store #175 – suggesting a November 1924 opening – and appears as a line in the ‘Changes and Appointments’ section of the magazine, listing a Mr R W Parratt, who was the manager of #175, as having moved to become manager of store #602 in Norbury.

The actual location is harder to pin down. At least one source suggests that it was the large property now occupied by a Paperchase flagship at 213-215 Tottenham Court Road, and this seems plausible looking at the building. Its overall scale and symmetry, and the double-height shop frontage, are certainly redolent of other central London Woolworths branches, such as those in Oxford Street and Kensington High Street.

Former Woolworths (?) (now Paperchase), Tottenham Court Road (6 Apr 2011)

The property’s page on Camden Council’s planning website also has links to some interesting historical documents, showing an application for major alterations in 1978, as well as a contemporaneous application for new Paperchase signage.

It’s not clear whether or not Paperchase was already in situ at that time, but a 1970s closure of the Woolies store would account for the hazy recollections, and fits with the types of locations that were being closed down at that time. Hopefully, as before, publishing this blog will elicit further memories that help us get to the bottom of the mystery.

Graham filming with the BBC's Chris Jackson in Stockton High Street

Those of you in the North East and Cumbria (or anywhere else with access to Freesat), may be interested in watching BBC1 at 7.30 pm tonight (Monday 6 December)! [UPDATE: The programme is now available to watch on iPlayer.]

The regional Inside Out programme includes an interview with me as part of a feature on the state of the North East’s high streets; coincidentally, the programme also has a report (not involving me) on the transformation of Robbs of Hexham, under the new ownership of Beales.

Hexham's transformed Robbs store (4 Dec 2010)

The high street theme is running across all the regional editions of Inside Out this week – in the BBC South version, for example, Claire Robertson from Wellworths is making an appearance, talking about Dorchester’s success in maintaining a very low number of empty shops. 

The programmes’ timing deliberately coincides with the release of new research into empty shop rates that the BBC commissioned from the Local Data Company, as well as with the impending second anniversary of Woolworths’ demise – hence the BBC asking me if I’d be willing to be involved.

B&M Bargains, on the site of Stockton's old Woolworths (22 Nov 2010)

I had a really enjoyable and interesting day filming with the BBC in Stockton and Hartlepool – happily just before all the current snow and ice kicked in. The reason for filming in Stockton was its dubious honour of having nearly 30% of its town centre shops empty – one of the highest proportions of any of the 500 town centres covered by the LDC survey. My job was to provide some insight into why Stockton has such a high vacancy rate – building on my August blog post on that topic – as well as commenting on the success of those discount retailers, like B&M Bargains in Stockton, that have taken over old Woolies sites across the region.

Stockton High Street (17 Sep 2010)

As you know from my previous comments, I have rather a fondness for Stockton town centre. Its unusually wide High Street is one of the best urban spaces anywhere, and it is lined by some beautiful – if sometimes neglected – buildings.

Castlegate Shopping Centre, Stockton (28 Jun 2010)

Equally, visit the Castlegate Shopping Centre, where we started our filming, and you can also be forgiven for wondering where the LDC got its figures from. Though very much based around a value offer (including Wilkinson, Poundland and Home Bargains, as well as B&M), there are hardly any vacant units and the mall was really busy with shoppers on the Monday morning that we were there.

Wellington Square, Stockton (17 Sep 2009)

Nevertheless, walk the length of the High Street towards the empty Globe Theatre and the number of vacant units does start to add up. In Wellington Square, Stockton’s newer shopping centre, I counted at least 15 (mostly smaller) empty units, despite the presence of strong anchors such as Debenhams, New Look, H&M and (a modernised) M&S. Around the corner, in the High Street itself, one particular stretch includes only one permanent shop in a row of six units that are otherwise either empty or to let. With these kinds of numbers, the LDC findings begin to make sense.

Empty shops in Stockton High Street (22 Nov 2010)

So, why does Stockton have so many empty shops? When the BBC’s Chris Jackson asked me this question while filming in front of some of these vacant units, I suggested that it was down to a combination of factors.

While it’s easy to blame out-of-town retail, it’s certainly true that Stockton town centre has to compete with an unusually large number of out-of-town stores, both at Teesside Shopping Park and Portrack Lane. This doesn’t stop some retailers, such as M&S, having a presence both in-town and out – indeed, even B&M has just opened a Homestore in part of the old Big W at Portrack Lane, obviously seeing this as complementary to its Castlegate shop.

Marks & Spencer in Stockton (16 Nov 2010)

However, other retailers that could conceivably have a Stockton town centre presence, like Next and TK Maxx, already have stores at Teesside Shopping Park instead. Factor in the competition from Middlesbrough’s strong retail centre just four miles away, and it’s easy to frame Stockton as having a town centre that is simply too large for its current needs. Imagine that Stockton’s empty shops could be magicked away, with those that remain compressed into a smaller footprint. Without the distraction of the empty units, what you would see is a pretty strong retail offer for a place of Stockton’s size. Indeed, there are plenty of towns that would love to have both Debenhams and M&S on their high street, as Stockton still does.

Closed-down Rosebys in Stockton (16 Nov 2010)

As I explained to Chris, however, Stockton’s situation is not all down to local factors. There’s little any place can do when quite a number of its empty shops – such as a former Ethel Austin, Leveys, Rosebys, Au Naturale and Internacionale – are the consequence of weak retailers collapsing or struggling at a national level. Unfortunately, such names tend to be disproportionately represented in more secondary or less affluent retail locations rather than in major city centres, exacerbating the problem of empty shops in those places that often most need a retail fillip.

However, work already underway in Stockton provides some optimism for the future. The local council seems to recognise what needs to be done, improving the appearance of empty shops to minimise their blighting effect on the town centre, and supporting the transformation of the derelict Globe Theatre into a venue that draws people into that part of the High Street. All this is helped by the fact that Stockton High Street offers such a unique and impressive setting.

Inside Middleton Grange, Hartlepool (17 Sep 2009)

In contrast, Hartlepool’s town centre, where we filmed later in the day, suffers from having much less richness and character, due to its town centre basically being the Middleton Grange shopping centre. As with other homogeonous town centres such as Washington, this inevitably limits the options for retailers looking to enter Hartlepool, particularly those that would prefer a bustling high street location to an enclosed mall. After all, there must be some reason why Hartlepool’s large Woolworths site remains empty at the same time as many big names (and potential occupants) – such as BHS, H&M, TK Maxx and TJ Hughes – remain absent from the town.

Church Square, Hartlepool (16 Nov 2010)

Though parts of Middleton Grange are bright and busy, it suffers from being largely inward facing, and from having inadequate physical connections with the surrounding area. It is around these edges – notably in the dismal Market Walk area – where Middleton Grange seems to have its largest number of empty units.

The desolate Market Walk area of Hartlepool (16 Nov 2010)

I love the vibrancy of Hartlepool Marina, as well as the pleasing architecture and townscape of Church Square and Church Street (part of Ralph Ward Jackson’s original town centre for West Hartlepool – more of which in an upcoming post). However, getting to these places on foot from the town centre is stymied by a succession of busy roads, despite the distance not being very great. For the same reason, I suspect few of those who visit the Marina, Museum of Hartlepool or HMS Trincomalee make it over to the town centre.

The attractive Hartlepool Marina (17 Sep 2009)

Apart from making Hartlepool less hard to navigate, an important point I made on camera related to the town’s lack of a department store. Go back twenty years, and Hartlepool had Binns (House of Fraser) as well of Uptons, anchoring either end of Middleton Grange.

The outline of the former Binns logo can still be seen (16 Nov 2010)

Today, the Binns site is occupied by Wilkinson, and the old Uptons is a Co-op Home Store – basically one of Anglia Co-op’s Westgate Department Stores, but with only home-related departments and no fashions. If Hartlepool is to prevent the leakage of shoppers to centres such as Middlesbrough and Sunderland, this is a gap that really needs to be filled.

Co-op Home Store, Hartlepool (16 Nov 2010)

Having said all this, I’m not entirely sure how much of the filming is going to be used in the programme tonight – I know that the need to report on the impact of the current cold weather has meant that the retail features have, unfortunately, had to be trimmed. Let’s just hope that Inside Out doesn’t feel a late urge to report on Newcastle United sacking yet another manager earlier this afternoon…

Boyes fascia

Boyes, the Scarborough-based variety retailer, has revealed that its latest store – in Bishop Auckland’s old Woolies premises – will open for business on Friday 19 November.

With Woolworths gone, Bishop Auckland’s retail focus has been in danger of gravitating too far towards the Newgate Centre and Marks & Spencer. However, the arrival of Boyes – a move apparently welcomed by other retailers in the town – should help to restore the balance by giving a boost to the southern end of Newgate Street.

Boyes site in Newgate Street, Bishop Auckland (6 Feb 2010)

Bishop Auckland is Boyes’ fourth store opening of 2010, bringing its total to 40 across Teesside, County Durham, Cumbria, Yorkshire, Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire.

In June, Boyes opened up on the former Woolworths site in Cleethorpes, closely followed, in August, by a new store in the old Sunwin House premises in Brighouse, West Yorkshire. Most recently, in October, a branch opened on the site of Ilkley’s former Westgate Department Store.

Though I understand that no more openings are imminent, Boyes has previously shown interest in expanding into Northumberland – coming close to opening a shop in Prudhoe – and on to Tyneside. With its eclectic, 30,000-strong product range – including household goods, DIY, clothing, homewares, toys and stationery – Boyes is a northern success story that could be just the tonic some of our region’s high streets need.

Gregory's bakers in Bishop Auckland (6 Feb 2010)

The recent focus upon all that’s been happening in Newcastle means that I haven’t had as much time as I would like to explore some other topics of interest – there are at least half a dozen on my ‘to do’ list.  

One thing I’ve been meaning to write up – and now finally am – is a report on my visit to Bishop Auckland, in County Durham, a few Saturdays ago. Other than skirting around the edge on my way somewhere else I’d never been to Bishop Auckland before, but I was generally quite impressed by the town centre. It has a nice range of independent shops (like the 150-year-old Gregory’s bakers^{[broken link removed]}, above) and big-name multiples (such as M&S and Topshop), some attractive streets and buildings, and its main shopping thoroughfare – Newgate Street – had a nice buzz about the place on the day that I visited.

Market Place, Bishop Auckland (6 Feb 2010)

On the downside, I was disappointed by the rather gloomy Newgate Shopping Centre, and by the small and sad-looking cluster of market stalls in the Market Place. Rather like in Tamworth, the look and feel of the market was rather disparate and ad hoc; however, where Tamworth’s market suffers from being shoehorned into too small a space, Bishop Auckland’s seemed to be floating in a public square that was much too large for it.

Entrance to Auckland Castle (6 Feb 2010)

Overlooked by the imposing Town Hall and the entrance to Auckland Castle, Bishop Auckland’s Market Place is undoubtedly among the North East’s most impressive public spaces. When I visited, much of the area was being dug up as part of improvement works that will include new paving and “extra space for events and market stalls”. Once complete, these enhancements will hopefully allow the Market Place to be used to its full potential.

Given what I’d seen on the Bishop Auckland Town website at bishopauckland.org, I’d also expected more of Fore Bondgate: a narrow and historic street off the Market Place that is full of character, but seems to be suffering from a lot of empty units at the moment. However, Fore Bondgate has scope to be a great location in which to build an interesting cluster of independent shops and cafes, and with the right investment and promotion could really be a distinctive and successful retail destination.

Former Woolworths, Bishop Auckland (6 Feb 2010)

Unsurprisingly, a highlight of the visit was being able to tick another North East Woolworths off the list, meaning that there are now only nine left to get of the 33 that closed down in December 2008 and January 2009. I hadn’t seen a photo of the store prior to visiting Bishop Auckland, but even without the giveaway of the red Woolworths fascia, it is instantly recognisable as a Woolies building, with all the familiar architectural traits. Indeed, of all those former Woolies I’ve seen so far, it’s the most similar to the mysterious is-it-an-old-Woolies-or-not in Byker.

Former Woolworths, Bishop Auckland (6 Feb 2010)

Just a couple of doors up from Woolworths is another property that could very easily have become an empty blight on Newgate Street – the Co-op department store, now run under the Westgate Department Stores brand by Anglia Regional Co-operative Society (ARCS). As I’ve mentioned before, Bishop Auckland’s Co-op department store was one of three North East shops rescued by ARCS when the Co-operative Group decided, in 2005, to exit non-food.

Westgate Department Store, Bishop Auckland (6 Feb 2010). Photograph by Graham Soult

It’s easy to see why ARCS stepped in to save the store, as it really is at the heart of Bishop Auckland town centre, and its only department store. Its street frontage is vast, and it sells all those types of products – such as toys, furniture and electricals – that would otherwise be difficult to find on the local high street. Pleasingly, the store seemed to be doing a decent trade on the Saturday afternoon when I was there – long may it continue.

Co-op Department Store, Great Yarmouth, prior to Vergo Retail's takeover. Photograph by Stephen McKay

In the last couple of weeks, one interesting news story that has been easy to miss is the takeover of the East of England Co-op’s department store business by Vergo Retail.

Vergo Retail, as you may be aware, is the Liverpool-based operation headed by David Thompson that, in 2007, rescued Lewis’s of Liverpool, Joplings of Sunderland and Robbs of Hexham from the brink of closure after Owen Owen, the previous owner, had gone into administration.

Reports suggest that Vergo Retail has been doing rather well since then. Certainly, the business has been performing well enough to snap up the non-food operation of the Plymouth & South West Co-operative Society^{[broken link removed]} (PSWCS) in February this year, including the Derrys department store in Plymouth and four additional Homemaker stores in Devon and Cornwall; and well enough to double the size of the business again, just a couple of weeks ago, with the acquisition of twelve East of England Co-op shops. This latest acquisition includes department stores in Norwich, Ipswich, Colchester, Clacton-on-Sea and Great Yarmouth, as well as six home stores in Felixstowe, Stowmarket, Clacton, Stanway, Dovercourt and Witham, and a standalone jewellery store in Colchester.

These developments are notable for various reasons, not least in being illustrative of the extent to which the UK’s consumer co-operative movement as a whole has recently been seeking to exit the non-food sector. A critical milestone in this respect was the Co-operative Group’s decision, in 2005, to close or sell its 36 department stores; here in the North East, this resulted in the closure of landmark stores in Gateshead, Newcastle, Chester-le-Street and elsewhere, while a few others – including Bishop Auckland, Blyth and (briefly) Berwick-upon-Tweed – became part of Anglia Regional Co-operative Society’s Westgate Department Stores business.

Co-op department store, Tamworth

The impact of the Co-operative Group’s exit from department stores has been significant. First, it has created challenges for those (dwindling number of) independent co-operative societies that remain – such as East of England and, in my parents’ home town, Tamworth Co-op – requiring them to source new suppliers and renogotiate with existing ones, while having to work increasingly hard to maintain gross margins. Second, it has meant that for any societies seeking to merge with the larger Co-operative Group – such as United Co-op in 2007, and PSWCS in 2009 – prior disposal or closure of their department stores has essentially been a prerequisite.

Vergo Retail’s recent moves are therefore significant in that they seem to offer unloved and unwanted Co-op department stores a lifeline - as non-Co-op department stores. In the east of England, there can be little doubt that many of the now-saved stores would have closed had Vergo not stepped in - yet they are all shops that have a loyal clientele; that perform an important function within their respective communities; and that, with some dynamic management and a little investment, could once again be highly successful. Indeed, as Vergo expands its empire, its ability to secure improved supplier terms – and offer better deals to customers – will be enhanced; the very opposite situation to that faced by the few remaining co-operatives with non-food interests.

What is interesting, from a historical point of view, is that I can think of no precedent where Co-op department stores have been acquired, as going concerns, by a non-co-operative retailer; rather, if you were to go back to the 1950s and earlier you would see the process happening in reverse, with independent department stores - such as Newcastle’s Henry A Murton’s in Grainger Street^{[broken link removed]} – being acquired by local co-ops.

Vergo Retail's established Robbs of Hexham store

Going forward, much will depend of course on whether Vergo can successfully turn around the mostly loss-making stores that it has acquired; however, the company’s apparent success in reinvigorating Lewis’s, Joplings and Robbs (no-one can forget the sad, plundered interior of Robbs in the days leading up to its aborted closure) bodes well. For me, though, the burning question – and one that I cannot find either asked or answered anywhere else – is how will Vergo rebrand its newly acquired stores in Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex? After all, a store that is no longer a co-operative can barely be called a ‘Co-op Department Store’.

It will be interesting to see whether Vergo comes up with some locally-inspired names, or whether – in House of Fraser style – it seeks to bring some brand consistency to its growing portfolio. Lewis’s of Clacton, anyone?

Thank you to Stephen McKay for the use of the photograph of Great Yarmouth’s Co-op (now Vergo) department store, which is © Copyright Stephen McKay and licensed for re-use under the Creative Commons Licence.