A major retailer is set to quit Huddersfield town centre – leaving a big hole in the town’s Kingsgate complex.
Dixons Carphone is to close its Currys Digital store at Kingsgate on Sunday, May 15, as part of a “store development programme” which will see it consolidate its Huddersfield business at the Currys PC World store at Great Northern Retail Park.
Jonathan Hardy, centre manager at Kingsgate, said: “It will be sad to see them go.”
But he added: “We are confident the unit will be taken up by a major name and, hopefully, very soon we will have something to report on that.”
In a brief statement, Dixons Carphone said: “As part of our store development programme, our Huddersfield Currys Digital store will be closing on May 15.
“We have been working really hard to ensure all our colleagues are fully informed and looked after.”
Currys has occupied the prominent unit 1 at Kingsgate ever since the centre opened in February, 2002.
Dixons Carphone also has Currys PC World outlets at West Yorkshire Retail Park in Birstall, Charlestown Road Retail Park in Halifax, the White Rose Centre in Leeds as well as stores in Bradford and Wakefield.
Another store at Beeston, Leeds, is set to close on May 22.
The stores are among 134 outlets to close as Dixons Carphone seeks to merge its three main brands – PC World, Currys and Carphone Warehouse – in superstores across the country.
The move comes as 60 staff at the BHS store in Huddersfield and about 11,000 staff nationally face an uncertain future after the retailer went into administration a week ago.
Mr Hardy said Currys.Digital had come to the end of their lease at Kingsgate and had decided to take their business to the retail park.
But he said: “We have various irons in the fire with regard to a new occupier for the unit which will involve either retaining the unit as it is or developing it. It’s an opportunity to get a new tenant in there and to maintain the profile of the scheme with a new name. We are in talks with a number of potential tenants.”
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The unit – which Currys has occupied for almost 15 years – offers 6,000sq ft across two floors.
Mr Hardy revealed that Kingsgate had exchanged contracts this week on another vacant unit to bring in “a new name we have never had before” but was unable to give details at this stage.
Dixons Carphone plc is billed as Europe’s leading specialist electrical and telecoms retailer and services company, employing more than 40,000 people in nine countries.
The business was formed with the £3.8bn merger of electricals specialist Dixons and Carphone Warehouse two years ago.
