1 month ago
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A BELOVED DIY retailer has closed all of its stores after six decades trading.
The family-run firm is shutting up shop for the final time after suffering a string of financial losses.
Google mapsThe family said the business is no longer viable[/caption]
Lawrence Brothers opened in the early 1960s and sold everything from screws to electrical goods and timber.
Also known as Lawrence’s, the DIY business used to be the community’s go-to hardware shop.
But with growing competition from the likes of B&Q and Screwfix, bosses said sales have plummeted forcing it to close its stores in Maltby and Wickersley, Yorkshire
The Wickersley shop has already closed but the Maltby store on Rotherham road remains open for now with a 25 per cent off sale on “virtually everything”.
Jenny Lacey, a second-generation Lawrence family member, put their struggles down to a reduced footfall making it harder to “make ends meet”.
She added that with the rise in internet shopping, once loyal customers were now buying their goods online.
She told Rotherham Advertiser: “It is due to a multitude of reasons.
“We have competition from the internet and whether it is that or Screwfix or B&Q locally up at Maltby, we get less footfall every year and it is harder to make ends meet.
“The supermarkets have a section selling hardware and it all chips away, not to mention the rising costs.
“Unfortunately the business is just not viable.”
Making the decision to close down was “particularly tough” for Jenny’s dad, 91, who launched the business 63 years ago with his brother.
Despite the devastating announcement, the family said the customer have been “wonderful” with many sharing “lovely” and humbling comments.
Locals hopped online to share their disappointment, with one calling the closures “another sad loss to our town”.
Many expressed concern for the growing number of small businesses being forced to close because of financial pressures.
One unhappy resident said: “It’s a sorry day for Maltby and Wickersley. Only the big corporations will survive but at a price to us all.”
Another called the closure a “disaster” for the community, whilst a third said they were saddened at the loss of an “institution”.
One commenter added: “Staff always friendly and so helpful, great to get your wood and building materials.. Will be greatly missed.”
This comes just days after locals in Worthing, East Sussex told how fifteen shops have closed on their high street in the space of a few months.
Some complained there was “nothing to do any more” following the “sad” decline.
Worthing saw a surge in closures between 2023 and 2024, according to the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), which also revealed that 625 shops had closed in the wider county of Sussex.
This constitutes a 10 per cent drop in retailers in a blow to both shoppers and local business.
One shopper, Sally Richards, told the BBC: “It’s sad that there is hardly any big departmental stores now.”
Another, Claire Szaja, said the town was “not doing as well as it used to”.
Why are retailers closing shops?
EMPTY shops have become an eyesore on many British high streets and are often symbolic of a town centre’s decline.
The Sun’s business editor Ashley Armstrong explains why so many retailers are shutting their doors.
In many cases, retailers are shutting stores because they are no longer the money-makers they once were because of the rise of online shopping.
Falling store sales and rising staff costs have made it even more expensive for shops to stay open.
The British Retail Consortium has predicted that the Treasury’s hike to employer NICs from April 2025, will cost the retail sector £2.3billion.
At the same time, the minimum wage will rise to £12.21 an hour from April, and the minimum wage for people aged 18-20 will rise to £10 an hour, an increase of £1.40.
In some cases, retailers are shutting a store and reopening a new shop at the other end of a high street to reflect how a town has changed.
The problem is that when a big shop closes, footfall falls across the local high street, which puts more shops at risk of closing.
Retail parks are increasingly popular with shoppers, who want to be able to get easy, free parking at a time when local councils have hiked parking charges in towns.
Many retailers including Next and Marks & Spencer have been shutting stores on the high street and taking bigger stores in better-performing retail parks instead.
In some cases, stores have been shut when a retailer goes bust, as in the case of Carpetright, Debenhams, Dorothy Perkins, Paperchase, Ted Baker, The Body Shop, Topshop and Wilko to name a few.
What’s increasingly common is when a chain goes bust a rival retailer or private equity firm snaps up the intellectual property rights so they can own the brand and sell it online.
They may go on to open a handful of stores if there is customer demand, but there are rarely ever as many stores or in the same places.
The Centre for Retail Research (CRR) has warned that around 17,350 retail sites are expected to shut down this year.
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