A HIGH street coffee chain with over 2,000 sites is set to close a major branch after nearly 20 years of trading.
Whilst an exact date is yet to be confirmed, the beloved cafe is due to shutter its doors for good later this month.
Costa Coffee will be closing one of its branches later this month[/caption]
One of its Trafford Centre sites will soon cease trading[/caption]
Costa Coffee will be closing one of its branches in the Trafford Centre, Manchester.
The chain has assured that its employees will be redeployed to their nearby branches.
Its other two cafes in the shopping mall will also remain open.
These other branches can be found in the Trafford Palazzo and Trafford Centre.
One is located within the NEXT store, while the other can be found inside the Odeon cinema.
A Costa Coffee spokesperson told Manchester Evening News: “We can confirm that our Costa Coffee store in the Trafford Centre will close for trade later this month.
“Our talented team of baristas will be redeployed to our nearby stores in central Manchester.
“Our Costa Coffee stores in NEXT and The Odeon within the Trafford Centre remain open for customers to enjoy their favourite Costa coffee.”
This comes after The Sun reported on more closures for the popular coffee chain earlier this year.
A popular site on Westbourne high street closed last month following a string of 20 closures.
Branches have also ceased trading in Andover, Kent and Marlborough.
On the closure of the Westbourne site, a Costa spokesperson said: “We can confirm that our Costa Coffee store on Seamoor Road, Westbourne, which is owned and operated by one of our franchise partners, will be closing for trade next month.
“The majority of our talented team members have been redeployed.
“The local community can continue to enjoy their favourite handcrafted Costa coffee at our nearest store on Commercial Road in Bournemouth.”
Costa Coffee isn’t the only chain facing store closures.
Earlier this week The Sun reported that Cancer Research has confirmed the closure of a staggering 88 stores.
The charity has blamed higher national insurance contributions, inflation pressures and changing consumer habits as the key reasons for having to axe the stores.
Whatsmore, a further 100 will be gone by April 2027.
An insider told The Sun: “It’s heartbreaking. We’ve given years of our life to this charity and now we’re being thrown away just before Christmas.”
The source said “changing trends” – such as people reselling clothes on the likes of Vinted and Depop rather than donating them – has been hurting sales.
RETAIL PAIN IN 2025
The British Retail Consortium has predicted that the Treasury’s hike to employer NICs will cost the retail sector £2.3billion.
Research by the British Chambers of Commerce shows that more than half of companies plan to raise prices by early April.
A survey of more than 4,800 firms found that 55% expect prices to increase in the next three months, up from 39% in a similar poll conducted in the latter half of 2024.
Three-quarters of companies cited the cost of employing people as their primary financial pressure.
The Centre for Retail Research (CRR) has also warned that around 17,350 retail sites are expected to shut down this year.
It comes on the back of a tough 2024 when 13,000 shops closed their doors for good, already a 28% increase on the previous year.
Professor Joshua Bamfield, director of the CRR said: “The results for 2024 show that although the outcomes for store closures overall were not as poor as in either 2020 or 2022, they are still disconcerting, with worse set to come in 2025.”
Professor Bamfield has also warned of a bleak outlook for 2025, predicting that as many as 202,000 jobs could be lost in the sector.
“By increasing both the costs of running stores and the costs on each consumer’s household it is highly likely that we will see retail job losses eclipse the height of the pandemic in 2020.”
Costa have confirmed its other two sites in the mall we remain open[/caption]
