[Brighton] RIP Debenhams

Jello said:

Would love a John Lewis in Brighton, wonder if they'd take on the Churchill Square site but delay opening for a while

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They were supposed to be taking the Boots site at the clock tower.

All that money Arcadia must have spent at the front of Churchill Square ......all to nought!

I have car insurance with Debenhams, does anyone know if this could be affected?

Tom Hark said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-55142724

Bad news for the town, and for the viability of Churchill Square whose flagship store just sunk.

Above all, very sad news for the local folks that work there. Nightmare before xmas. Wishing them all good things for a brighter new year

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The Debenhams in Hastings will leave a gaping hole in the local economy.

A new re-branded flagship store opened up in Watford recently, now that's going.
It was part of the new extension to the Intu centre, which in hindsight, was completely mad during the news of the initial struggles.

Solid at the back said:

I have car insurance with Debenhams, does anyone know if this could be affected?

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I would doubt you are insured by Debenhams, they are just the salesmen

Maybe shopping malls in the UK could go a bit more mixed use? Have been to plenty abroad with a full mix of retail, restaurants, bars, leisure. Works well and creates lots of evening activity which the retail units benefit from as they stay open in the evening too. To be fair they are often multi floor with the food / drink leisure uses in the top or bottom floors but something like that could work and it might be needed if the bigger retail units just won’t get filled.

Could maybe put a new Odeon cinema into the Debs unit and knock down the Kingswest building for redevelopment? On that site have a new building with couple of floors of retail / leisure uses and bang 20 storeys of flats on top - sorted.

Marty___Mcfly said:

Maybe shopping malls in the UK could go a bit more mixed use? Have been to plenty abroad with a full mix of retail, restaurants, bars, leisure. Works well and creates lots of evening activity which the retail units benefit from as they stay open in the evening too. To be fair they are often multi floor with the food / drink leisure uses in the top or bottom floors but something like that could work and it might be needed if the bigger retail units just won’t get filled.

Could maybe put a new Odeon cinema into the Debs unit and knock down the Kingswest building for redevelopment? On that site have a new building with couple of floors of retail / leisure uses and bang 20 storeys of flats on top - sorted.

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Not limited to outside of the UK - Eastbourne did this with the extension of the Arndale (Refuse to call it the Beacon) centre. The bottom floor is shops and upstairs is a multi screen cinema and several restaurants. Also similar is the outside of the O2 arena. The big flaw in that scheme is that cinemas may not every recover fully.

P1ss poor management but luckily the man at the top will survive unscathed


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Almost 1,000 Debenhams workers in Ireland have been on strike for the past 239 days. Debenhams used the first lock-down in Ireland to liquidate the Irish company and toss the workers onto the street - and refused to pay enhanced redundancy payments in breach of a 2016 agreement. The workers have been blockading the stores since in an attempt to prevent the liquidators - KPMG - removing stock from the stores. As late as last Friday a mediator was appointed to hold discussions between KPMG and the workers trade union. KPMG promised not to attempt to remove stock from any of the 13 stores for 7 days and the workers agreed to scale back the picketing to 'create an atmosphere for the talks' - KPMG promptly broke their commitment and sent scabs into the stores to try and remove the stock.

The crisis in Debenhams was caused by vulture funds - TPG, CVC Capital and Merrill Lynch - who took over the stores, sold all the buildings to then lease them back, and then took £1.2billion n dividends out of the company as part of an asset-stripping exercise. In the process the debt carried by Debenhams rose from £100million to over £1billion. 4 billionaires made a financial killing and in the process cost 1,300 workers they jobs in Ireland and now 12,000 jobs in the UK - in stores that are actually profitable but have been saddled with high rents and long leases as a result of the asset-stripping of the company.