Reprieve for three North West House of Fraser stores

House of Fraser's Deansgate store

Three North West House of Fraser stores threatened with closure have been saved.

New owner, Sports Direct and Newcastle United boss Mike Ashley, revealed today (September 23) that 15 stores that were earmarked to close will now remain open, saving around 3,500 jobs.

These include the Birkenhead, Altrincham, and Carlisle outlets.

But three stores – Edinburgh, Hull and Swindon – will close, and a fourth, in Bath, remains at risk.

Talks over the Bath store continue with its landlord, the city council.

Mr Ashley blamed “greedy landlords” for the closures.

Mr Ashley said: “I am disappointed that in my opinion a small number of greedy landlords still refuse to be reasonable.”

It is understood that Mr Ashley was demanding low, or in some cases, zero rents.

Mr Ashley added: “We’ve showed what we can achieve on the British high street when we work together with landlords.

“I would like to thank those landlords who have helped us to rescue approximately 3,500 jobs at the stores we have saved to date.

“I am calling on everybody to pull together, including landlords and local authorities in order to help to save as many House of Fraser stores and jobs as possible on the great British high street.”

Mr Ashley spoke in August about “greedy landlords”, which prompted the British Property Federation landlords’ group to accuse him of crying “unfair in the media when it doesn’t get want it wants”.

The Birkenhead store is in the Labour constituency of MP Frank Field, who has previously clashed with Mr Ashley over working conditions for his Sports Direct staff.

Mr Field today welcomed news that the Birkenhead site had been saved as “tremendous”.

He added: “Six weeks ago, I wrote to Mike Ashley with an urgent plea to safeguard the future of our House of Fraser and the jobs of the store’s staff.

“Thanks to the positive discussions that have taken place since then with the store’s landlord, this cornerstone of our town centre is being given a chance to flourish once again.”

Mr Ashley bought the House of Fraser group out of administration for £90m on August 10.

At the time he said he hoped to save around 47 of House of Fraser’s 59 outlets, including its flagship site on Manchester’s Deansgate.

The full list of stores that have now been reprieved are: Altrincham, Aylesbury, Birkenhead, Camberley, Carlisle, Darlington, Doncaster, Grimsby, High Wycombe, Lincoln, London (Oxford Street), Middlesbrough, Plymouth, Skipton, Telford, Huddersfield, Leeds, Maidstone, Solihull and Sutton Coldfield.

Close