Former Swindon WH Smith shop closing after more than 50 years

Everything Must Go signs have appeared in the front windows of the Regent Street branch of TG Jones as discounts have been added to all of the stock inside.

PC and tech products are 10 per cent off, books and general stationery are 20 per cent off, and cards are 30 per cent off in the final days of trading for a store that has been part of the town centre for more than 50 years.

Modella Capital bought 451 WH Smith shops last year and had to rebrand those retail sites to a different name as WH Smith had kept the travel branches in railway stations and airports.

Less than 12 months after this big sale, Modella announced a major restructuring plan due to what it described as “challenging retail conditions” which left it on the brink of insolvency with an £8 million cash shortfall.

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After the courts approved this plan, up to 150 TG Jones stores around the UK will close, 120 landlords will receive no rent for three years on the units that remain trading, and rent will be cut on hundreds of other shops by between 15 and 75 per cent.

Modella says the plans are vital for the survival of the business and will use some of the cost savings to invest in stores as part of its turnaround strategy.

Tom Smith KC, for TG Jones, told the hearing that the business is "highly distressed" and "running on fumes at the moment".

He said the business almost ran out of cash in April.

Modella said some of the issues related to serious underinvestment in stores by the chain's previous owners, a decline in long-term sales had declined, and the inability to keep the original brand name.

But it also blamed its current poor trading on "challenging retail conditions" and its inability to keep the WH Smith brand name.

A final day of trading for Swindon’s TG Jones store, which has been serving shoppers since 1973 and previously housed the Morse’s department store, has not yet been revealed.

Prior to 1973, the Swindon branch of WH Smith operated from 51 Fleet Street. [ TG Jones also owns the freehold for WH Smith’s Greenbridge headquarters, which have planning permission to be demolished so that a new housing estate can be built.