Ideas joins list of closed city shops

A furniture and homeware store in Wolverhampton has become the latest victim of the struggling High Street by announcing it will be closing down.

Ideas,on a prime site in Dudley Street,closes tomorrow with the loss of four staff. The new blow for the city centre comes as the shutters were being brought down for the final time on Dorothy Perkins in Mander Centre, today. Ideas, which opened in the city four years ago, is only a few doors down from clothing chain Oasis, which shut up shop on Monday.

Stock and shop fittings at Oasis were removed after owner Principles' said 66 of its stores would close.

Today stock had up to 75 per cent off at Ideas. A shop worker, who would not be named, said four people were to lose their jobs and it was closing because the lease had ended.

Today Wolverhampton City Council leader Neville Patten said: "This is bad news for the city. It looks as though things are going downhill at the moment and will get even worse.

"There is nothing worse than a high street full of empty shops." Some shops may have come to a natural end. "Shops are closing all over the country, not just in Wolverhampton," he added.

Hoping

"I am hoping the recession will go as fast as it came and that the larger stores will pull through the difficult times." He said talks continued about turning empty units into facilities, such as art gallery extensions.

"I have been speaking to the chief executive of the council Richard Carr about the idea of putting something for the community into the units," he said.

"The shops could be used as an extension to art galleries and opened up to the public."

There is an Ideas outlet in the Merry Hill Shopping Centre, Brierley Hill.

In January Woolworths in Dudley Street also shut for good as part of nationwide closures. Barratts in the Mander Centre has also recently closed after parent company Stylo went into administration last month.