Millets stores closed
Outdoor stores Millets and Blacks are to close six stores across the West Midlands, it was revealed today.
Around 70 jobs are set to go in the region as part of plans to close 89 branches nationwide. Millets branches will close in Wolverhampton's Wulfrun Centre, at Dudley's Merry Hill shopping centre, in Lichfield and in Telford town centre.
The Merry Hill branch of Blacks Leisure will also close, along with the store in Telford.
But the Millets in Walsall, Kidderminster and Stafford have been reprieved.
Blacks Leisure, which is also shedding 50 jobs at its Northampton headquarters, said the closures and job cuts were necessary to ensure the survival of the group, which is now working with advisers at accountants KPMG to draw up plans for further restructuring. Most of the stores to close have been making a loss, said Blacks Leisure, which today revealed a drop in sales meant it will breach the terms of its bank loans.
The company operates 256 Millets shops and 116 branches of Blacks Outdoor. It had described the 89 shops to be axed as a considerable drag on the outdoor division, which has traded profitably over the last two years. "The vast majority of the stores to be closed have not traded profitably for many years," said the company.
Nationwide the closure plan is likely to affect around 500 of the 5,000 people employed across Blacks' store network.
The group made a loss of £6.8m in the year to 28 February. Last month Blacks announced it was putting its 11 subsidiary Sandcity stores into administration.
