B&M fascia

Many thanks to Lee Dymond and Martin, who both emailed me about the news of B&M Bargains opening in the former Woolworths store in Burton, Staffordshire. As I mentioned last month, the 11,000 sq ft Coopers Square unit has remained empty since Woolworths’ closure more than two years ago, but this has always seemed surprising given the shop’s busy location in a relatively modern indoor mall environment.

The news merely reinforces B&M’s status as one of the real profiters from Woolworths’ collapse, having snapped up tens of ex-Woolies stores across the country, including the one in nearby Lichfield.

Former Woolworths (now B&M Bargains), Lichfield (30 Sep 2010)

In the North East too, B&M has been rapidly expanding its presence by mopping up space that would never normally have become available, including large units in Stockton town centre, Whitley Bay and Chester-le-Street and, most recently, a portion of the old Big W at Portrack Lane.

B&M Bargains (former Woolworths), Chester-le-Street (24 Jan 2011)

Back in August, The Local Data Company suggested that 150 ex-Woolworths stores “may never be used as shops again” – a figure that, if true, would equate to almost one fifth of the former Woolies store estate.

I’ve always been slightly sceptical of these pessimistic projections, particularly given that my own research shows that 88% (45) of the 51 ex-Woolies sites across the North East, Cumbria and North Yorkshire have already been reoccupied for retail use.

Though the initial flood of new occupants for ex-Woolies sites has inevitably dwindled as the number of available sites reduces, B&M’s takeover of the Burton unit shows that demand has not yet dried up. Indeed, news reports from across the UK over the last few weeks show other discount retailers still on the ex-Woolies acquisition trail, such as The Original Factory Shop in Bargoed and the son-of-Ethel-Austin chain Life & Style in Swansea.

Former Woolworths, Clayton Street, Newcastle (27 Sep 2009)

Of the six former Woolies locations that remain empty in the North East, four – Peterlee, Wallsend, Hartlepool and Middlesbrough – already have a B&M store in the town centre or on a nearby retail park. However, with B&M Bargains not yet having a presence in Newcastle city centre, it wouldn’t surprise me if the vacant Clayton Street Woolies site was a target for the retailer in the coming months.

Despite the nearby extension of Eldon Square, and the recent arrival of some interesting independent shops and restaurants, Clayton Street remains very much a secondary, discount-led location, with Poundstretcher, charity shops, nail bars and the ubiquitous BrightHouse among its main draws.

With its in-your-face signage and minimal shop makeovers, B&M Bargains is not everyone’s first choice as a Woolies replacement. However, no-one can dispute the business’s recent success, and it’s certainly time for something to liven up a stretch of Clayton Street that has been empty and lifeless for far too long.

Original Factory Shop fascia

The rapidly expanding mini-department store retailer, The Original Factory Shop, opened its seventh North East store, in Morpeth, last week. It adds to the retailer’s existing stores within the region at Stanley, Prudhoe, Ashington, Crook, Spennymoor and Shildon.

As noted previously, The Original Factory Shop has been snapping up quite a few former Woolworths branches across the UK – such as the one I visited in Porthmadog, and, closer to home, in Spennymoor.

Established Original Factory Shop store in Stanley (12 Apr 2010)

The Original Factory Shop, Spennymoor (12 March 2010)

However, while Woolies sites are one option, the retailer has a record of being creative in its choice of new store locations. As I blogged last week, Colwyn Bay is set to get an Original Factory Shop in a former pub (with an opening date of 31 August now announced), while the established store in Prudhoe – predating Woolies’ collapse – occupies a former Kwik Save site.

Existing store in Prudhoe (10 Apr 2010)

Meanwhile, the Morpeth location is, as I guessed it would be, the former M&S Simply Food site in the town’s Market Place. I should flag up that Morpeth was not one of the 25 Simply Food stores that was closed down last year due to “underperformance”, such as the shop in Whitley Bay.

Site of the new Morpeth store (10 Jul 2010)

Instead, the Morpeth site became vacant in November 2009 when M&S moved into a full-size store – with both food and fashions – within the new Sanderson Arcade shopping centre. Marks & Spencer had only occupied the Market Place site since 2006, having acquired it (and 27 other locations) from the supermarket Iceland at the point where Simply Food was expanding aggressively, and Iceland was emerging, under new ownership, from a torrid and lossmaking 2004-05.

New M&S in Morpeth's Sanderson Arcade (4 Dec 2009)

In the cyclical way of retail, Iceland returned to Morpeth in 2009 (in the former Woolies store opposite its original location), made a £110m pre-tax profit in the most recent financial year, and has regrown store numbers to 782 – their highest figure to date. Thus, there’s an element of going back to the future in Morpeth once again having a general retailer and Iceland facing each other across Bridge Street.

Summing up from a retail analysis point of view, the opening of The Original Factory Shop in Morpeth is notable on two fronts. First, for Morpeth, it’s great news in bringing a prime site back into use after a fairly short period of vacancy. With Sanderson Arcade having attracted some very strong names to Morpeth for the first time (including Fat Face, Laura Ashley, Paperchase, Crew Clothing and Waterstone’s), and with few voids elsewhere in the town centre, Morpeth seems to be riding the downturn well.

Second, for The Original Factory Shop, it’s interesting that Morpeth represents a location that is both more upmarket and more competitive than the “forgotten high streets” that it has traditionally targeted. It will be interesting to see whether this apparent shift in ambitions signals a push by The Original Factory Shop into other North East market towns, such as Hexham and Alnwick.

Alternatively, if the retailer’s expansion is focused on its more traditional type of location, there are still plenty of opportunities. After all, just in this region there are as yet no branches of The Original Factory Shop anywhere in Teesside, Wearside or Tyneside, meaning that places like Redcar, Seaham or Whitley Bay could yet be on the retailer’s radar.

Teesdale Mercury article

One of the things I love about retail is the way that you can always find obscure links between apparently unrelated places, people and shops – such as me innocently blogging about Newcastle’s old Zavvi store without initially realising the Woolworths connection.

The latest example of the phenomenon links two of my previous posts about completely different topics – the one from a couple of weeks ago about my visit to Barnard Castle, and February’s post about the now-famous Shopjacket in Whitley Bay.

The connection was made in last week’s Teesdale Mercury newspaper, where a nice story by the Mercury’s editor about my Barnard Castle blog post – under the heading ‘Retail expert praises town’ – sat next to a piece about Shopjacket’s latest project… in Barnard Castle.

Naturally, another visit to Barnard Castle was required last weekend, not only to pick up my own copy of the paper (the story about my blog is not, unfortunately, available from the Teesdale Mercury website, but you can see a PDF here), but also to check out the Shopjacket team’s latest handiwork. [UPDATE, 18 June 2010: The article is now online, and can be viewed here]

As you’ll recall, Whitley Bay’s so-called ‘shoptical illusion’ caused something of a media frenzy when it was installed earlier this year, taking the horrible looking former Select store and giving it the appearance of an upmarket delicatessen.

Shopjacket in Whitley Bay (29 May 2010)

Commisioned by the town’s regeneration partnership, Barnard Castle Vision, Barney’s version follows the same formula – this time masquerading as a baker’s – but has the advantage of being attached to a much nicer building to start with (the former Harmoni home gift shop at 22 Horsemarket). Again, it’s pretty realistic, and effective at transforming the empty property into something that contributes positively to the street scene.

Shopjacket in Barnard Castle (5 June 2010)

It also complements and supports the efforts that Barnard Castle Vision is making – mentioned in my previous post – to bring real independent retailers into the town, with recent arrivals including a vintage retro shop, a ladies’ fashion store, a hairdressers and a cycle shop. Bigger names have also been attracted, with Scotmid’s health and beauty chain, Semichem, opening its eleventh north of England store^{[broken link removed]} in the Market Place’s former Blockbuster Video premises. 

Who knows, at this rate it might not be long before Barnard Castle’s fake bakers is replaced by a proper one.

The former Select store in Whitley Bay, following its 'Shopjacketting'

Given the challenges that Whitley Bay town centre has faced over the last year – with a number of high-profile retail departures – it’s been great to see it at the centre of a good news story today. Sources as diverse as The Sun, the Daily Telegraph, Sky News and NewsLite have seized upon the ‘fake shopfront’ that now adorns the former Select store, intended by North Tyneside Council to replace the depressing sight of an empty unit with the impression of a thriving delicatessen.

...and how it looked before

By coincidence, the first property to receive the ‘Shopjacket’ treatment is one that I’d flagged up back in December as particularly ‘horrible-looking’. Consequently, when I had the pleasure a week ago of meeting up with the Tyneside-based team responsible for Shopjacket – among them property consultant Paul Murphy, and creative consultants Neil Wilson and Hayley Rodgers – I was thrilled to see the subject of their first transformation.

My own photo of the former Select shop and its surroundings, back in December

Instead of being blighted by the depressing appearance of the vacated Select shop, with its grimy fascia and droopy ‘Sale’ posters, Whitley Road now enjoys a much more pleasing scene – an attractive and tasteful frontage that gives an impression of how the unit could once again make a positive contribution to the high street. Who would have thought that a fake deli scene – and a much-needed coat of paint for the drab shutters – could make such a significant visual difference?

It’s not the be-all and end-all, of course. The property’s unattractive upper floors are still in need of work, and behind the fake frontage, there’s still a vacant unit that Whitley Bay could well do without. The value of the transformation, however, is that it brings a bit of hope, and some aspiration, back to Whitley Bay town centre – attributes that are essential if high streets like this are to have any hope of bouncing back from recent decline.

Former M&S Simply Food, Whitley Bay - subsequently taken over by Sainsbury's

Crucially, these positive vibes have already extended beyond the former Select shop, with Paul and Neil telling me how some of the nearby retailers in Whitley Bay have drawn inspiration from the fake deli to think about how they could enhance their own shopfronts – often for little more effort than a pot of paint and taking on board some expert design advice.

The enhancements to the former Select store are the latest in a string of recent efforts that Whitley Bay has made to tackle the problem of empty shop units, not all of which have worked so well. You may recall that in a previous post I expressed some incredulity about the plans to paint the hoardings of the nearby former Co-op supermarket in Whitley Bay, amid the claim from the town’s Chamber of Trade that “an initiative like this can only help attract more visitors and increase trade for businesses in the town”.

As I remarked then – and still maintain now, having visited the old Co-op for myself back in December – “it’s clearly nonsense to suggest that shoppers will be attracted to visit Whitley Bay because a particular empty shop unit looks more attractive than it did before”.

Former Co-op, Whitley Bay, featuring painted hoardings by Keith Barrett (16 Dec 2009)

True, no-one would dispute that the painted hoardings do look nicer than the previous grey ones, and the same would apply to the Whitley Bay FC themed paint job of the former T&G Allan shop.

Former T&G Allan, Whitley Bay (16 Dec 2009)

For me though, the danger of such interventions is that they merely emphasise the emptiness of the shops that they are trying to enhance. In this respect, Shopjacket’s approach – creating the illusion that a unit is occupied, rather than merely covering up the fact that it isn’t – is surely more successful.

With industry journal Retail Week having recently launched its “Manifesto for the High Street” – a 10-point plan to “breathe life into Britain’s high streets” – Whitley Bay’s efforts to turn the tide of decline are timely indeed. In a couple of weeks, I’m very much looking forward to attending the associated ‘Saving Britain’s High Streets’ summit in Birmingham, where representatives of retailers, trade associations, local authorities and national government are set to come together to address the regeneration of Britain’s high streets and town centres (if any readers of this blog happen to be going along, do track me down and say hi!).

After all the negative publicity of its town centre over the last year or so, I’ll certainly take pleasure in flagging up Whitley Bay as one place that, in a small but significant way, is employing some welcome creativity and inventiveness as it strives to turn the corner.

Well worth it? Well, perhaps...

Back in September, you might recall me trumpeting the fact that I’d visited six old Woolworths in a day. Today, however, I must confess to visiting (and photographing) ten in one day – or eleven if you count the extra one that I passed on the bus but was too tired to stop at. Needless to say, you will surely be expecting me to run through them all, so here goes…

Former Woolworths, Gateshead (16 Dec 2009)

First up is Gateshead, which – inevitably – still looks much the same as it did when I last blogged about it. There could be room for a B&M Bargains or 99p Stores in Gateshead town centre, but it’s difficult to see any retailers being attracted at the moment, given that the High Street remains a demolition site, and there’s still little indication of when work will start on the much-heralded Trinity Square scheme.

Former Woolworths, Jarrow (16 Dec 2009)

A few stops along the Metro, and the former Woolies in Jarrow is also still empty. I’d never been to Jarrow town centre before, but was quite impressed with the town’s Viking Centre – originally built as Britain’s first Arndale Centre in 1961, but evidently much revamped since then. It’s well anchored by several large big-name stores (Peacocks, New Look, Wilkinson, Morrisons), was busy with shoppers, and appeared to have hardly any voids apart from the former Woolies site.

Former Woolworths, South Shields (16 Dec 2009)

A few more Metro stops along, and South Shields is one of those slightly curious cases of a former Woolworths that has been carved into two, with part of it occupied and the rest still empty. I do always wonder about the wisdom of splitting large shop units, given that many towns have plenty of smaller premises available to let, but can’t always offer the large units that some of the highest profile retailers require. Still, one must assume that the building’s landlords know what they’re doing.

As things stand, a chunk of the building is occupied by Poundland, while the rest is apparently ‘to let’. Back in September, the Shields Gazette claimed that the remaining half was to be occupied by Primark, which always struck me as rather strange - surely if Primark was coming, it would have wanted the whole building, given that its stores are becoming increasingly huge. Certainly, I’m yet to see or hear anything to corroborate the Gazette’s claim – which is a shame, as I’m sure a Primark would be positive for South Shields town centre.

Former Woolworths, North Shields (16 Dec 2009)

Hopping over the Tyne on the Shields Ferry to North Shields, and the former Woolworths there is something a little different – a Cramlington Textiles Superstore. I was quite impressed with this shop, which sells DIY ranges, such as paint and wallpaper, alongside a vast array of curtains, cushions and bedding. The interior of the store has not had a lot done to it – I noted the Woolworths ‘Thank you for shopping with us’ signs still in place above the exits – but it’s tidy and well laid out, with fixtures and fittings that show off the product range to good effect.

Former Woolworths, Wallsend (16 Dec 2009)

Down the road in Wallsend, the new occupant of the old Woolworths store – Well Worth It – has garnered some regional media attention for its Woolworths-style format (and name – perhaps another case for the Shop Direct lawyers?), complete with the obligatory pick and mix. Well Worth It is part of the Blyth-based North East Convenience Stores empire, and this is reflected in the store having a significant grocery offer that occupies perhaps half the floorspace. Other than that, there seemed to be some good offers in areas such as homewares and toys, and there were certainly a decent number of people looking around.

Overall, however, I’m slightly ambivalent about these types of discount variety stores, and I didn’t really see anything that makes Well Worth It stand out from B&M Bargains, 99p Stores and the like. On the other hand, you could argue that if Well Worth It enjoys even a fraction of those retailers’ recent success, being distinctive will barely matter.

Woolworths in Whitley Bay: how it looked before (26 Dec 2008)

...and how it looks now (16 Dec 2009)

Talking about B&M Bargains brings us nicely onto the next stop in my journey, at Whitley Bay. The B&M store there has only been open a few weeks, and it was nice to see the building full of stock as well as people – all a bit of a change from my last visit, on Boxing Day 2008, when the then Woolworths store had just four days to go and very little left to sell. As is customary with B&M, the shop has had only a minimal makeover, inside or out – note the familiar shopfront with its light blue Woolies door handles – but it’s hard to knock a formula that is clearly working well.

Former Woolworths, Blyth (16 Dec 2009)

Up the coast a few miles and my next stop was Blyth, in Northumberland – another place I’d never visited before. The former Woolies there – now a PerfectHome shop – occupies a really prominent location in the surprisingly attractive market square, directly opposite the large Westgate Department Store. The new store looked very appealing, and had evidently had care lavished on both the frontage and the interior.

I remain unconvinced, however, about the usefulness of pay-weekly stores – such as PerfectHome or BrightHouse – as footfall drivers within town centres, given the types of products that they sell and the quite specific demographic that they target. It was difficult to judge today, given that Blyth town centre as a whole seemed very quiet, probably at least in part due to the terrible weather.

Former Woolworths, Ashington (16 Dec 2009)

A few miles away in Ashington, the handsome former Woolworths building has again been divided into two, with Heron Foods occupying half, and the other part currently empty.

Old postcard showing Ashington Woolworths (posted 1959)

I didn’t go in, as it’s a little difficult to pop into a freezer centre just to browse. Undoubtedly though, Heron Foods, just like B&M Bargains, has really capitalised on the demise of Woolworths to rapidly expand its presence in a way that wouldn’t ordinarily have been possible.

Former Woolworths, Morpeth (16 Dec 2009)

On to Morpeth, and though I’ve featured the town’s former Woolworths – now Iceland – before, I wasn’t going to let that stop me capturing an up-to-date photo while I was there. Honourable mention must also go to the old Woolies in Gosforth – previously featured here – which I passed on the bus on the way home, and noted was now open (and busy) as The Co-operative Food.

Former Woolworths, Newcastle (16 Dec 2009)

We end the day almost as we started: back on Tyneside, this time in Newcastle, with a former Woolies that is still empty and, as I blogged before, seems unlikely to see any action soon. Over the course of the day, however, it was heartening to see so many former Woolworths shops that have been brought back into use – in whole or in part – even if none of them quite manage to capture that elusive ‘Wonder of Woolies’.

Whitley Road in Whitley Bay (16 December 2009)

Visiting Whitley Bay in North Tyneside today, it was apparent that while there ARE indeed a lot of empty shops – as blogged about previously here – there’s still just about enough going on to keep shoppers interested. I’ll give a fuller rundown of my visit, including my reaction to the newly opened B&M Bargains, in an upcoming post.

Abbey/Santander looks like it's between brands at the moment

You have to feel slightly sorry, however, for the town’s branch of the Abbey bank – soon to be rebranded Santander – which is sandwiched between the horrible-looking former Select store and the boarded-up former T&G Allan shop (both closed earlier this year).

Looking at the bank’s current fascia, above, I did wonder whether it was trying to say something about its immediate surroundings?

B&M fascia

Barely a day or two after writing about Whitley Bay Woolworths still being empty, I now read that it’s going to become a B&M Bargains store – and will open on Thursday.

Relatively little-known before 2009, Blackpool-based B&M Bargains is definitely one of the biggest beneficiaries of Woolworths’ demise, picking up more than 40 old Woolies shops to date, and seemingly having a knack for getting its new stores up and running in a matter of days.

As I’ve mentioned before, I do struggle a little to see B&M as a destination store. Perhaps I just find it difficult to see beyond the ghastly blue and orange fascia? Clearly, however, having a reopened shop is vastly preferable to a vacant unit, particularly when it brings 40 new retail jobs to Whitley Bay.

Perhaps even more importantly, it’s a vote of confidence in Whitley Bay town centre – and one that may hopefully encourage other retailers to follow.

Woolworths in Whitley Bay, just prior to closure

Anyone who follows my blog posts will see how frequently I draw from the great resource that is local newspaper websites. With the downturn affecting every high street in one way or another – most obviously with the collapse of Woolworths, and the subsequent arrival of new shops in 600 former Woolies sites - the retail industry has probably never had more coverage in the local media than in 2009.

While some of the articles that I find in the local press are interesting and informative, others are unintentionally comical – most usually for the quotes that they attribute (not always wholly accurately, as I know from experience) to local luminaries, or the drama that they bring to an apparently mundane story.

Last week, for example, writing about the ‘son of Woolies’ chain Alworths, I mentioned the priceless Wiltshire Times article in which the vice president of Chippenham Chamber of Commerce apparently made his thoughts on the town’s proposed Poundland store abundantly – and rather pompously – clear:

“This is a flagship location on the High Street and Poundland would not set the right tone for the town and we already have one similar shop in Borough Parade that caters for the people who would use it.”

Prior to that, one of my favourites, that I mentioned back in July, was the Waltham Forest Guardian’s classic non-story: “Loughton High Road branch of Woolworths not bought by Argos”. On that basis, there are presumably 200 local papers that can run the story “Local Woolies not bought by anybody”…

Whitley Bay seafront

You’re probably wondering where I’m going with this, but the prompt for this particular blog post is a recent article from Newcastle’s Evening Chronicle that makes reference to one of those 200 or so Woolies that is yet to be reoccupied – up here in Whitley Bay, a town on North Tyneside that’s recently had a pretty torrid time, shops-wise. Following on from its shut-down Woolworths, and the closure of the prominent Co-op store in 2008, the early part of 2009 saw Whitley Bay lose two of its other most important shops – M&S Simply Food and the stationer T&G Allan.

However, read the Chronicle’s gushing quote attributed to Bill Midgley, the chairman of Whitley Bay Chamber of Trade, and you could rather be forgiven for thinking that something new and exciting is happening to enhance the town’s shopping experience:

“It will make the area more attractive, confirming the upward trend in retail shopping in the town centre.

“We understand the importance of the town centre being a pleasant place to visit.

“An initiative like this can only help attract more visitors and increase trade for businesses in the town.”

So what is ‘it’ that’s going to bring Tyneside’s shoppers flocking to the coast? (And what, pray, is ‘retail shopping’ as opposed to any other kind of shopping?) Well, if you can contain your excitement…

“The 36 hoardings which cover the boarded-up windows of the Co-op building, at the junction of Whitley Road and Marden Road, will be painted with a special design that reflects the seaside traditions of Whitley Bay.”

Yes, readers – it’s a whole article about the frontage of a vacant, boarded-up shop being painted, and how this will (in the words of someone else quoted in the piece) “make Whitley Bay a more attractive place to visit, and so contribute to the sustainability of the High Street economy”. While it would be churlish to not see the mural as a positive step, it’s clearly nonsense to suggest that shoppers will be attracted to visit Whitley Bay because a particular empty shop unit looks more attractive than it did before.

The F E Maughan store in Whitley Bay

Indeed, it would be unfair on the hardworking retailers that remain to suggest that it’s all gloom and doom in Whitley Bay – look beyond the most visible signs of decline and it’s a place that still has a great deal of charm, and a stunning seaside location that no amount of money can buy. Crucially, there are still a good number of independent shops^{[broken link removed]} doing OK, such as the quirky and useful F E Maughan hardware store, and investment (finally) coming in to revamp the seafront. Meanwhile, the Whitley Bay Playhouse has recently reopened after an £8.5m rebuild, and the appealing Park View Shopping Centre, opened in 2004, still has a decent complement of big-name retailers, including Peacocks, Superdrug, Iceland, Boots and Home Bargains.

The rather silly article in the Chronicle is not terribly helpful in that it emphasises – yet somehow trivialises – the challenges that Whitley Bay is genuinely facing as a retail centre, while saying very little about its tangible positive features. Bring in some new quality retailers to complement those shops and attractions that already exist, and that really will be a local news story worth blogging about.

Former Woolworths in Houghton-le-Spring

Though I can’t claim to make a habit of visiting six old Woolies stores in the same day (including Houghton-le-Spring, above), I have managed to build up a pretty good collection of former Woolworths pics over the last year or so – snapping them as I spot them, and, it must be admitted, making the occasional detour expressly to get another one.

I figured that it was therefore time to bring together all the photos of old Woolies that haven’t featured in Soult’s Retail View already, together with some of the ones that we’ve seen before. As you would expect it’s certainly an interesting mix, with some success stories but also plenty of properties that remain unoccupied nine months after Woolies’ demise.

Woolworths, Whitley Bay (26 Dec 2008)

To kick off, this photo of the store in Whitley Bay was taken on Boxing Day last year, a few days prior to closure. Sadly, I understand that the store is still empty, with little sign of anything happening. On the plus side, nothing seems to have come of the suggestion, from no less than the (now former) Elected Mayor, that the building should be turned into a new library; if Whitley Bay is to have any future as a retail centre, taking the town’s largest and most prominent shop unit out of retail use surely seems like a crazy idea.

Back in March I emailed the northern variety store retailer Boyes to suggest that Whitley Bay would be a perfect location for one of its shops. Whitley Bay, I argued, needed “a store like yours that sells a wide range of products at reasonable prices” – in my view, it’s this type of useful, everyday retailer that is most likely to get shoppers popping back into the town centre on a regular basis. Anyone who’s ever visited a Boyes store will appreciate that it’s the epitome of this kind of shop – truly a treasure trove of handy stuff such as homewares, toys, stationery, toiletries and clothing.

To Boyes’ great credit, I promptly got a personal email back from no less a figure than the company’s chairman, Andrew Boyes, confirming that the retailer was “interested in expansion into the [Tyne and Wear] area” and was “looking at opportunities”. So, though nothing has happened yet, the door for Boyes to pick up some old Woolies seemingly remains ajar.

Still in December last year, being in Chesterfield for my cousin’s wedding presented me with an opportunity to tick off another old Woolies that had closed down just three days earlier, in the town’s Vicar Lane Shopping Centre. Despite being a good-looking and well-located unit, the Vicar Lane store guide indicates that this store too remains empty almost ten months on.

Former Woolworths, Chesterfield (30 Dec 2008)

Moving north of the border, another vacant unit is the store in Perth, captured not long after closure in February. As far as I can gather, however, this store also remains unoccupied.

Former Woolworths, Perth (23 Feb 2009)

Some good news now, and the old Woolworths in Hexham, in Northumberland – one of the very first tranche of 51 Woolies stores to be acquired by Iceland, back in January. This shot was taken in August, a couple of weeks before the store opened.

Former Woolworths, Hexham (8 Aug 2009)

Iceland acquired another Northumberland store, in Morpeth, at the same time. This photo was also taken in August, with the supermarket already trading. To Iceland’s credit, it has done a good job in both Hexham and Morpeth of sprucing up two properties that were looking in need of some TLC while in Woolworths’ care.

Former Woolworths, Morpeth (15 Aug 2009)

I’ve already written, in some depth, about my recent visit to Durham. As I noted then, the new Tesco Metro in the former Market Place Woolworths seems to be nicely mopping up those city centre shoppers left adrift by last year’s departure of Waitrose.

Former Woolworths, Durham (11 Sep 2009)

There’s no need to repeat the photos that you’ve already seen of former Woolworths in Redcar, Middlesbrough, Stockton-on-Tees, Hartlepool and Gateshead – all taken on 17 September – or the shot I used last week of the empty MetroCentre branch.

So let’s end, for the moment, with this shot of the recently opened Home Bargains in Tamworth, Staffordshire.

Former Woolworths, Tamworth (19 Sep 2009)

Tamworth and I go back a long way – it’s the place where I went to school, and is somewhere I still visit from time to time. So, I was pleased to see that Home Bargains had done such a good job of turning the slightly tired Woolworths premises in George Street into a really bright and modern store. Indeed, Home Bargains’ comprehensive refit of the unit, including a smart new shopfront, has successfully avoided the problem of the building still feeling like an old Woolworths (cf. Redcar or Middlesbrough).

It was also the first time I’d seen a tweaked Home Bargains fascia – in burgundy and grey, instead of the more garish red and bright blue – but it does work well in conveying a slightly more quality image for the retailer, as well as being more in keeping with the overall look of the street.

That’s all for now – but you can look forward to part 2 in due course which will feature a selection of Welsh former Woolworths stores – Holyhead, Porthmadog, Prestatyn, Rhyl, Colwyn Bay and Llandudno – as well as a few more local ones in Byker, Gosforth, Newcastle and Consett.

Time for a lie down, I think.