Barker and Stonehouse to close Newcastle city centre…

Barker and Stonehouse to close Newcastle city centre store

Barker & Stonehouse is closing its Newcastle city centre store ahead of the opening of a new Tyneside store.

The luxury home furnishings company is investing a significant sum into a new store at the Metrocentre Retail Park in Gateshead, which is set to open on Good Friday, April 7, this year, complete with new features for customers including a restaurant. The move means the company will be closing its shop in Newcastle’s Leazes Park Road, where it has traded since 1998. Staff were told of the closure plan last autumn, which managing director James Barker says have been triggered by a number of changes.

Mr Barker said there are no plans to open elsewhere in the city centre because of the firm’s sizeable investment at the Metrocentre, plus the success of its partnership with nearby department store Fenwick. The firm last year launched its partnership with fellow North East retail stalwart Fenwick, opening new in-store concepts within the company’s department stores in Newcastle and Kingston.

Mr Barker, the third generation of the family to take the helm at the business, said: “The Fenwick partnership is going well. I think it will get better when we make the move - we are going to close the Newcastle store in March.

“At the moment the new Gateshead store will open on Good Friday. Our present Gateshead store will be turned into an outlet, we will retain our concession in Fenwick in the city centre, and then we will be closing the Newcastle store in March.

“We’re spending a huge amount of money on the new store in Gateshead, and between Fenwick and the new store in Gateshead that will be everything we need. It’s bigger than the Newcastle store. It has lots of free parking, it’s accessible – furniture shopping in the city centre is not an easy thing now.”

Against a background of historically low consumer confidence and 30-year-high inflation, Mr Barker said the retailer is continuing to invest in the new state-of the-art flagship store, which has been designed with sustainability in mind, with the use of responsibly-sourced timber frames rather than steel and a full roof of solar tiles. A Chadwick & Co restaurant will also open in the store.

The opening date for the new shop was revealed as the firm, which has 11 stores across the UK as well as a website, published its latest accounts, covering the year ended March 27 2022, showing a 28% jump in turnover, from £76.1m to £97.6m. Operating profit also increased from £5.25m to £8.23m and overall profit for the full year was £6.38m, up from £3.99m. Staffing levels also rose in the period, with the firm employing an average of 430 people, up from 398 in 2021.

Mr Barker said the growth came thanks to demand for home furnishings following the pandemic. He said the end of national lockdowns delivered a boost but that the firm was now experiencing pricing pressures.

He said: “It has been very up and down. We’ve been dealing with supply chain problems and now we’re dealing with the cost of gas and electricity. At the moment we’re dealing with change all the time, and you just have to be able to adapt.”