Stockport Wilko store among first branches to close

Stockport’s Wilko store will close on Thursday 14th September alongside over 50 other sites nationwide, joint administrators for the retailer, PwC, have announced.

Wilko first opened in Stockport in 2017 at Stockport Retail Park (formerly The Peel Centre) in the town centre, and employs around 40 staff.

PwC has previously confirmed it is liaising with trade unions, government agencies such as JobCentre Plus and other stakeholders to provide employment support for staff who are losing the jobs. A number of major retail chains have also expressed they will offer guaranteed interviews to former Wilko employees, including The Works, Dunelm and Hobbycraft. Supermarket chain Aldi is also promoting its 6,000 live vacancies nationwide to colleagues from the retailer.

23 stores will close on Tuesday 12th September, followed by a further 28 on Thursday 14th September, with all 1,016 staff regrettably being made redundant. The store closures follow the announcement of nearly 300 redundancies at Wilko’s distributions centres in Worksop and Newport, and 269 at its Support Centre, also in Worksop, Nottinghamshire.

PwC’s Edward Williams, joint administrator, said:

“In the absence of viable offers for the whole business, very sadly store closures and redundancies of team members from those stores are now necessary. The loss of these stores will be felt not only by the team members who served them with such dedication, including through the uncertainty of recent weeks, but also the communities which they have been a part of. 

“We are enormously grateful for the support of team members during this difficult period and remain committed to doing all we can to help affected staff, assisting them with processing redundancy claims and working with relevant parties to help secure new employment as quickly as possible.”

Negotiations remain ongoing in search of partial buyers for the business. Rival retailer, B&M has already agreed a £13 million deal to take on 51 Wilko stores, with HMV-owner Doug Putman, Poundland’s parent company Pepco, and Home Bargains also in talks to take on some of Wilko’s 400-store estate.