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Marks & Spencer food store to close

11:04am Wednesday 7th January 2009

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LESS than three years after it opened, the Marks & Spencer Simply Food store in Trowbridge is to close with the loss of 29 jobs.

Stuart Rose, chairman of M&S, said: "We believe that we have looked at every available option and opportunity to keep the Trowbridge store open, but in this tough trading environment it is no longer commercially viable.

"We are very sadly putting forward this proposal to close the store and will listen carefully to any suggestions employees have for alternatives.

"We have a great team here and I would like to thank them for their commitment to the store and for their hard work delivering excellent service to our customers.

"If this proposed closure goes ahead, we hope that our valued customers will continue to shop with M&S at one of our alternative local stores such as Bath, which also offers a wide variety of quality M&S products."

A period of consultation will now start with the store’s 29 employees and the company said it would offer employees help to find alternative employment in the local area.

The company announced it was closing 25 of its 355 Simply Food stores nationwide this morning.

The store in Marlborough will close its doors also.

The Trowbridge store opened in The Shires shopping centre on June 29 in 2006.

What do you think about the closure? Leave a comment below.

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Juan King, Westbury says...
11:11am Wed 7 Jan 09

I think it is a terrible shame, although I have never actually used the store, preferring the much larger choice at the Bath store.

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Juan King, Westbury says...
11:11am Wed 7 Jan 09

I think it is a terrible shame, although I have never actually used the store, preferring the much larger choice at the Bath store.

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tomwe, Warminster says...
11:18am Wed 7 Jan 09

This is very sad news, as I often visited the store on a weekend while my wife shopped for clothes in The Shires. Do we know the fate of the store in Frome? Is there a list out there of the stores which are closing?

I wander what this may mean for our hopes for the proposed Waitrose store here in Warmintster. Will the expansion of the high-end supermarkets end here?

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tomwe, Warminster says...
11:22am Wed 7 Jan 09

tomwe wrote:
This is very sad news, as I often visited the store on a weekend while my wife shopped for clothes in The Shires. Do we know the fate of the store in Frome? Is there a list out there of the stores which are closing?

I wander what this may mean for our hopes for the proposed Waitrose store here in Warmintster. Will the expansion of the high-end supermarkets end here?
press release: http://corporate.mar
ksandspencer.com/doc
uments/press_release
s/2009/Q3_store_clos
ure

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ThisTownNeedsAnEnema, Trowbridge says...
11:25am Wed 7 Jan 09

Let's get this into perspective. M & S aren't losing money. Profits are still being prophesised as being around about the £590 million mark for the 2008-09 period. Share prices have gone up by 6% at the news that people are going to be made redundant. This simply shows the lack fo morality and societal responsibility shown by businesses. All that matters is the share price at the expense of people's jobs.

So what next for the Vision of Trowbridge? Woolworths is empty. The snooker club is dead. The prospect of M and S being boarded up is there. Yet we still have this ludicrous Gateway to the Shires with its marvellous three shops so far confirmed. Why? Why do we need another shopping area? The shopping areas we have are not filled. Castle Place generally has one or two empty slots. The town centre is turning into nothing more than pub and kebab land. I call on the town councillors to start investing more in sports and physical recreation rather than more hairbrained retail schemes. Obviously this will be difficult whilst they're busy wanting Sainsburys to come over here.

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kingfisher10, bath says...
12:06pm Wed 7 Jan 09

Thats really sad loved that shop always in there on a friday. I adore Marks feel very sorry for the staff they are lovely

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Vox Pop, Trowbridge says...
12:38pm Wed 7 Jan 09

tomwe wrote:
This is very sad news, as I often visited the store on a weekend while my wife shopped for clothes in The Shires. Do we know the fate of the store in Frome? Is there a list out there of the stores which are closing? I wander what this may mean for our hopes for the proposed Waitrose store here in Warmintster. Will the expansion of the high-end supermarkets end here?
Frome M&S is not on list of stores to close. The other ‘local’ stores due for closure are Tewkesbury and Marlborough. I will be sorry to see the Trowbridge M&S food store closed but it’s a ‘fait accompli’. Just a while ago were they not thinking of building a full-size store on the site of the old Usher’s bottling depot?

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man-made, Trowbridge says...
1:05pm Wed 7 Jan 09

Hopefully Iceland will buy back the shop and we will have an Iceland again

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Nick Taken, Trowbridge says...
1:36pm Wed 7 Jan 09

Job loss news is never easy to swallow no matter how common it is now becoming.
I hope that all the staff find new stable and secure employment soon.
Looks like the M&S food shoppers will now have to cut their own apples and mash thier own potatoes, maybe even prepare and cook a meal from scratch.
How will they ever cope?

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New 2 Trow, Trowbridge says...
3:34pm Wed 7 Jan 09

Who thought Trow would be a good idea for an M&S food? I agree with man-made, an Iceland is probably going to do better.

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vexillologist, Trowbridge says...
5:03pm Wed 7 Jan 09

Very disappointed about the forthcoming closure of the Marks and Spencer store in The Shires. For a while, it seemed that Trowbridge was catching up with other towns with a variety of quality shops. M & S gave us a much needed choice and I used the shop regularly for sandwiches and snacks. Once again, it seems like Trowbridge - the County Town, is being treated like a poor relation. The reasons for the closure will probably not be disclosed, but if the footfall of customers in this particular store was not enough to make the site viable, many of the other shops in the town probably don't stand a chance at all. With Trowbridge it seems like it is always one step forward and two steps back.

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metrorider, trowbridge says...
5:07pm Wed 7 Jan 09

This is what happens when you let stores such as Tesco dominate the town. People are quick to mourn the loss of M&S and Woolies, but the fact is people will shop where it's cheap and convenient. We will see a different high street in the next 12 months.
I suppose we could all join the workshy in Wetherspoons each day and grab a 99p Pint!

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Val Bourne, Trowbridge says...
1:20pm Thu 8 Jan 09

The proposed closure of the M&S Simply Food store in The Shires would be an enormous blow to Trowbridge. As the County town of Wiltshire, Trowbridge has always struggled to provide any reasonable standard of shopping facilities for either residents or visitors to the town. Over the last few years we have enjoyed the addition of M&S, Monsoon, Costa Coffee and The Body Shop which have certainly helped to raise the profile of Trowbridge. If M&S pull out I fear that it may be the start of an avalanche of these 'higher profile' chains abandoning the town. There are already too many empty shop units within The Shires, and now also a large gap where Woolworths used to be. I both live and work in Trowbridge and frequent the M&S store on a regular basis every week - as do most of my work colleagues. The store is always busy when we go in there, and the staff are always very helpful and accommodating. In the current climate the onus should be on instilling confidence into the spending public and not appearing to desert them at the first opportunity - the County Town of Wiltshire NEEDS and WANTS the M&S Simply Food store and Stuart Rose should not turn his back on us


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Rougesvp, Dallas says...
2:20pm Thu 8 Jan 09

This is not good news for the Town. I have been overseas for a few years now but still own property in the town, this is certainly a blow to those wishing to make something of Trowbridge. M&S is perceived to be a quality establishment whose presence in a town could sway others to come to the marketplace.

Not good, especially with the quantity of "brown" land still vacant, thanks to an ineffective Council!

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ThisTownNeedsAnEnema, Trowbridge says...
2:22pm Thu 8 Jan 09

Trowbridge can't sustain that many chain stores. It's not got the right economic demographic to keep it going. I'd bet my legs on Monsoon reviewing their site in Trowbridge if economic conditions stay this way over the next year.

What a county town really needs isn't a slightly better food store. It needs direct links to London by rail rather than a multi-change route via Salisbury. It needs a railway station that actually offers some facilities to those waiting there. It needs more developments beyond just houses and supermarkets such as a decent theatre. The proposals for a new Wiltshire College with decent arts facilities would be superb. It's absurd that there is no decent live music venue in Trowbridge (and no the Pump Festival doesn't count as it's not actually in Trowbridge). Trowbridge is not a town that can sustain immeasurable chain stores. I'd much rather see our planners helping and promoting independent retialers and enterprise rather than bending over backwards to help more and more chains. The Waterside development for instance is a prime example of a poor notion. More chains, more things that can be pulled out when a company isn't earning enough money just like M&S, for it is important to note that M&S are still estimated to make £695 profit for this financial year so it's not a move designed to stave off bankruptcy a la Woolworths. The Waterside development could totally eradicate smaller independent restaurants and social enterprises within Trowbridge which I believe would be to the detriment of this place.

A county town needs more facilities than just bloomin' supermarkets.

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man-made, Trowbridge says...
6:42pm Thu 8 Jan 09

I cant believe people are getting silly about one shop closing, it was m&s at the end of the day nothing really popular and that the town desperately needs!

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ThisTownNeedsAnEnema, Trowbridge says...
7:36pm Thu 8 Jan 09

Man-made:

Precisely. M&S is a bit more upmarket and there aren't enough customers in that better paid economic bracket to truly sustain it. It's similar to Bradford on Avon. A few restaurants there went more upmarket and business at those places stiffed. There simply wasn't enough people earning enough money to spend in those places. Cities like Bath and Bristol have a greater business composition, wages are higher and you'll get people spending more at more upmarket places.

This is why I believe more needs to be done to support local independent retailers, restaurants etc. Those people keep money within the community. When they earn it, they are more likely to spend it in local businesses on a social and commercial basis than the like of M&S. Any profits are mor elikely to go into business expansion within the local area rather than going into shareholder bonuses or chief executive bonuses. If you keep working on this, it becomes almost self-sustaining in a way, and I believe that is what Trowbridge needs to become, a fairly self-sustained town rather than one that bends over willingly in a desperate attempt to get every major supermarket player here.

AS I've said elsewhere, M&S is closing stores as it's worried abotu losing cash. It is projected to make £695 million pounds in profit for this financial year. There's no danger of M&S folding like Woolworths or certain Icelandic banks. This is purely about shareholders. Look what happened when the closures were announced: shares went up 6%. Shareholders got wealthier on the back of people losing their jobs. That is evident of a fabulously corrupt system that is actually pretty antisocial in how it works and operates. Anyone who wants evidence of the notion that corporate business plans are bad for towns and the population in general just have to look here. This is why we need to trust and encourage development of local independent traders and not these supermarket pigs.

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cosslett, staverton says...
11:16am Fri 9 Jan 09

I wouldnt be at all surprised if the threat of global dominating Tesco was behind it ,when a big supermarket wants control of the town its hard for any other retailers to survive.the staff in M&S are always friendly,helpful,smi
ling and most important -knowledgeable.I wa sin there on wed just after the announcement had been made ,they must have been at their lowest ebb but it didnt show.I have no idea what Stuart Rose is up to?and where he gets his calculations from why is Devizes keeping theirs? I feel so angry that am going to rip up my M& S credit card!

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ThisTownNeedsAnEnema, Trowbridge says...
2:47pm Fri 9 Jan 09

I very much doubt that the Devizes branch of M&S has as many current rivals and as many potential rivals as the Trowbridge branch. Potentially had all plans come through, the Trowbridge M&S would have been stuck in the middle of Asda, Tesco and Waitrose on one side, Sainsburys over in the middle of town and then Aldi and Lidl who are sneaking up there in terms of good quality cheap product.

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