Final BHS stores to close this weekend

THE LAST remaining BHS stores are set to close this weekend, with the doomed retailer set to disappear from the high street entirely by tomorrow.

Administrators to the department store chain are set to shut 22 stores tomorrow – including the last remaining Yorkshire stores in Doncaster and York – bringing an end to 88 years of British retail history.

Duff & Phelps and FRP Advisory have already overseen 141 closures over recent weeks, including BHS’s flagship Oxford Street store in London’s West End.

The department store’s collapse in April has affected 11,000 jobs, 22,000 pensions, sparked a lengthy parliamentary inquiry and left its high-profile former owners potentially facing a criminal investigation.

Retail billionaire Sir Philip Green has borne the brunt of the public fallout, having been branded the “unacceptable face of capitalism” by furious MPs.

Sir Philip has come under fire for taking more than £400m in dividends from the chain, leaving it with a £571m pension deficit and for selling it to a man with no retail experience.

John Hannett, general secretary of the shopworkers’ union Usdaw, said: “Wherever the blame lies for the demise of this once great British retailer, it certainly is not with the staff who are paying a high price for corporate decisions that have led us to where we are today.

“There remains some very serious questions that need to be answered, by former owners of the business, about how a company with decades of history and experience in retail has now come to this very sorry end.”