Legendary shopping centre to shut after 40 years with HOURS left to bag bargains in closing down sales
A LEGENDARY shopping centre will shut it doors for the final time today.
Connswater Shopping Centre in east Belfast closes its doors today, 21 March 2025, after more than 40 years of serving the community.
Opened in 1983, the centre was once a bustling retail hub and a key shopping destination in the city.
However, challenging trading conditions and the departure of major retailers led to a gradual decline in footfall, ultimately resulting in receivership earlier this month and today’s closure.
The remaining 20 tenants, including Boots, New Look, Poundland, and Claire’s Accessories, have been given notice to vacate.
While the closure marks a sad day for east Belfast, the adjacent retail park, housing stores such as The Range and Lidl, remains unaffected.
The receivers are currently exploring potential future uses for the site, including marketing it for sale.
BDO NI Partners has been appointed fixed charge receivers.
A spokesperson for BDO NI told BBC News that “despite best efforts to sustain the centre, the costs of keeping it open were no longer feasible”.
The firm said it will help tenants remove stock over the coming weeks and give them additional time to make alternative arrangements if needed.
“Once this has been completed, we will then move to market the site for sale,” the spokesperson said.
Poundland recently confirmed that its store in the shopping centre will bring the shutters down for the final time this evening.
In the lead-up to the closure, the budget retailer has halved prices to clear its remaining stock.
While Poundland has expressed disappointment at having to leave the site, it stated that the decision to close was unavoidable.
This latest closure follows a series of store shutdowns by the bargain retailer at the end of last year, when 13 locations were shuttered over a three-month period.
It comes as the bargain chain is set to be sold – sparking fears for high street branches.
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.
Other shops leaving the high street
Beales, one of Britain’s oldest department stores, has launched a closing down sale before it shuts its last remaining shop after more than 140 years.
The company will shut its branch in Poole’s Dolphin Centre on May 31.
The sale includes fashion, furniture, gifts and cosmetics, being sold for up to 70% off.
Beales chief executive Tony Brown blamed the “devastating impact” of the rise in national insurance contributions and the higher minimum wage for the store closure.
Meanwhile, high street fashion chain New Look has begun to close stores as it scales back its UK footprint.
It is understood to be shutting nearly 100 stores – equivalent to around a quarter of its 364 shops.
Stores in Gateshead, Tyne and Wear, St Austell, Cornwall and Porth, Rhondda Cynon Taf have launched closing down sales.
Reports suggest that the company has been forced to accelerate the pace of store closures due to tax changes in the Autumn Budget.
Meanwhile, Huttons in London will shut its store in the Putney Exchange due to excessive energy costs.
The gift shop became a local icon after it opened in the 1990s.