Philip Green closes 210 Arcadia stores over two years

Arcadia boss Philip Green has closed 210 stores over the last two years, representing around a fifth of his UK retail empire. 

The tycoon allowed the leases to run out on individual stores instead of renewing them during an ongoing battle with falling sales and increasing property costs, the Sunday Telegraph reported.

A total of 62 Dorothy Perkins stores have closed, making the women’s clothes retailer the hardest hit in Green's retail empire over the past two years, followed by 41 Evans store closures and 26 at Wallis.

Burton, Topshop, Topman and Miss Selfridge saw 80 closures between them.

“We have all witnessed the high profile closures and restructuring of retail businesses leading to stores shutting and large scale job losses,” John Webber, head of business rates at Colliers International, told the Sunday Telegraph.

“But what is happening quietly, without the fanfare but with the same devastating results, is the steady stream of shops that close at lease renewal or at break clauses were the keys are handed back to landlords.”

Arcadia's business rate bill would have jumped around £20m over the last five years, Colliers International said, reaching around £128m last year. 

It comes as the latest data from the Office for National Statistics showed that sales fell 0.9 per cent month on month in December as shoppers kept their purses closed in the face of Brexit uncertainty. 

Growth for the whole of 2018 almost halved compared to 2016's 4.7 per cent peak in growth, falling to 2.7 per cent.