Primarks 50yrs with £100m for new stores
Investment shows faith in high street
Bigger and better stores and hundreds of new jobs
KARI RODGERS RETAIL DIRECTOR UK ON PLANS
BUDGET fashion giant Primark has confirmed plans to pump more than £100million into bricks-and-mortar shops this year as it marks half a century on the English high street.
The booming business will open at least three new stores and extend or revamp more than a dozen others.
In all, the plans will create nearly 700 jobs. Primark’s decision to invest in real shops proves it thinks there is plenty of life yet in the British high street.
The Daily Mirror has been doing its bit in the battle to save high street trading too, with our long-running High Street Fightback campaign.
Kari Rodgers, UK retail director, said: “We’ve changed a lot in the 50 years since we opened the doors on our first store in Great Britain in Derby in 1974.
“But at our heart, we are still the same. This latest investment will mean bigger and better stores and hundreds of new jobs across the country.”
It also proved the retailer’s commitment to the UK high street, she said.
The chain will open new stores in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk; Teesside Park and Glasgow Fort later in the year.
It also announced some of its biggest ever store extensions.
West London’s Westfield Stratford store is set to almost double in size to more than 81,000 square feet.
The Metrocentre Primark in Gateshead, Tyneside, will expand to almost 80,000 square feet of shopping space once reopened later this year.
Fifteen Primark stores will be refitted.
Primark now has 192 stores across the UK and employs more than
30,000 people.
And the firm’s success comes despite not selling clothes via a website.
Instead, it uses the internet to plug ranges and show availability, along with some click-and-collect services.
As well as clothes, some stores now have Greggs and Disney cafes. Primark also sells second-hand clothes through a collaboration with vintage clothing wholesaler Wornwell.
Outside of the UK, Primark is in 15 other countries.
Its stated ambition is to reach 530 stores globally by the end of 2026.
The high-volume, low-cost retailer was founded in Ireland under the brand name Penneys, with the first shop opening in Dublin in June 1969.
Its first store outside of the Republic of Ireland opened in Belfast, Northern Ireland in 1971.