I can’t quite believe that it has come to this … that Woolworths, a British high street institution for the last 99 years, is about to shut its doors for good. Many people blame the “credit crunch” for Woolies going pop, but the business has been badly run for years and slowly lost its share of the market. From tomorrow they will start the Closing Down sale where every last jelly teddy from the pick n mix has to be sold to try to claw back as much as possible for the creditors.

The problem with Woolies is that it doesn’t focus on any particular sector, it does a bit of everything, but in smaller towns and cities such as Ripon where I live, Woolies is that general all purpose store that keeps you shopping locally. About 12 months ago Ripon lost its Choices / Blockbusters during the takeover due to a dispute over the owed rent on the building, so the only place that we had to buy DVD’s & games locally was Woolies. I would often get really annoyed though as you would find what you wanted on the shelves at Woolies, but once you got to the counter you were told it was out of stock… (no wonder they went under)

But in Ripon, Woolies provides a valuable resource for kids school uniform (now where will we get those black PE pumps from?), kids toys, pick n mix, the odd household item, birthday cards and lots more that we have all taken for granted. Now what will be left… lots of big empty stores on the high street where Woolies used to be and a lack of the “all-in-one shop” that we all use.

Then just announced yesterday the temporary deal done with the banks by JJB Sports to allow them a longer period to repay their debts of nearly £60 million … so will they be next to abandon the high streets?