Beloved shoe shop chain to shut store after 40 years on the high street
A BELOVED shoe shop chain is set to shut one of its stores after 40 years on the high street.
Blunts Shoes announced its store on Granby Street in Leicester’s city centre will close at the end of March.
The footwear chain was first established in 1865 and had operated the store in the heart of the East Midlands’ largest city for four decades.
It made the announcement in a post on Facebook that read: “After 40 wonderful years, we are sad to announce the closing of our Blunts Shoes Leicester store.
“It has been an honour to serve this community, and we are truly grateful for your support and loyalty over the years.
“Please continue to support us at our Blunts Shoes Leicester Store which is confirmed to close at the end of March.”
The firm’s head office in Kidderminster, Worcestershire, said that footfall had been a factor in the decision to close the store.
Fans of the shop were quick to express their sadness, commenting under Blunts’ Facebook post.
Many described the announcement as “sad news”, tagging their friends to share the message.
The chain operates 10 other stores across the region under both the Blunts name and as United Footwear.
Pop star James Blunt had brought the store to fame after he previously joked about it ahead of a performance in the city in 2023.
This comes as a string of high street chains announced the closures of stores across the UK at the start of 2025.
The Body Shop, for example, has said it will pull down the shutters on five stores in areas across the UK this month.
Stores in Exeter, Plymouth, Horsham, Norwich, and Sheffield will all be shutting their doors for the final time on 15 January.
Popular supermarket Waitrose has also announced one of its sites in Hall Green, Birmingham will close permanently on 14 January after being open for more than half a century.
Waitrose claimed that “despite the best efforts” they were ultimately unable to find a way to “make the shop commercially sustainable.”
New Look has also confirmed one of its branches in Wickford, Essex will close in a matter of weeks amid rumours the chain is accelerating its mass store closure plans.
The store will welcome in customers for the final time on 24 January in a blow for the high street.
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. 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.
Boss Stuart Machin recently said that when it relocated a tired store in Chesterfield to a new big store in a retail park half a mile away, its sales in the area rose by 103 per cent.
In some cases, stores have been shut when a retailer goes bust, as in the case of Wilko, Debenhams Topshop, Dorothy Perkins and Paperchase 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.