Retailer announces it is to close three stores in North West

There was more bad news for the high street with the announcement that Brighthouse is to close 30 stores.

Three shops in the North West are closing, in Eccles, Macclesfield and Southport.

Brighthouse, which specialises in selling household items through credit terms, is the second chain this week to announce it is shutting stores.

HMV is closing three shops in the North West as part of a rescue package launched after the firm was bought out of administration.

Around 350 Brighthouse staff will lose their jobs.

The chain will shut 30 stores over the next two months and said redundancies will be an “inevitable” part of the process despite efforts to transfer employees to other jobs within the business.

A spokesman for the firm said: “We are working to redeploy as many people as possible into alternative roles, but redundancies will be inevitable.

“We will be speaking to all customers affected by the store closures and either transferring them to another local store or serving them online.”

The news comes just a month after Brighthouse announced that its chief executive Hamish Paton is to leave the company after two-and-a-half years in charge.

There has been a swathe of closures in the retail sector over the last year. Big names that have been affected include New Look, House of Fraser and Toys R Us.

Last year the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) watchdog announced the introduction of a price cap on firms like BrightHouse, with the aim of protecting consumers.

The watchdog said customers were often among the most financially vulnerable people in society, and in some cases they were paying up to four times the average retail price due to high interest payments on items.

In 2017, BrightHouse paid out £14.8m to 249,000 customers after the FCA found it did not act as a “responsible lender”.

The full list of BrightHouse stores closing:

Aylesbury

Basingstoke

Bognor Regis

Bromley

Cowley

Dunstable

Eccles

Gravesend

Haverfordwest

High Wycombe

Leeds Merrion

Macclesfield

Maidstone

Newark

Newport (IOW)

Nuneaton

Perth

Rugby

Scarborough

Seaham

Selby

Southport

Stafford

Stirling

Thetford