Carphone Warehouse closes York shops – Laura Ashley goes into administration

Two national chains are in trouble, affecting a number of branches in York.

Carphone Warehouse has announced it is shutting all its 531 standalone phone stores.

These include shops on Parliament Street and Coney Street, and another at Monks Cross.

Laura Ashley has gone into administration, after refinancing talks were stalled by the coronavirus.

The Laura Ashley store at Monks Cross is next door to Carphone Warehouse.

Thousands of jobs affected

Dixons Carphone said its Carphone Warehouse shops – which make up around 8% of the entire group’s selling space – will shut as it plans to sell mobile phones solely in its 305 combined Currys PC World stores and online across the UK.

It expects to make 2,900 redundancies, but said almost 1,800 affected staff are set to take new roles elsewhere in the business.

Carphone Warehouse group chief executive Alex Baldock said the coronavirus pandemic and bleak economic outlook underlined the importance of making the decision, but stressed the driving force laid with changing customer habits.

Laura Ashley said it hired advisers from PwC to oversee the administration today (Tuesday).

A spokesperson said it had seen an upturn in sales in recent weeks, with trading up 24% year on year for the seven weeks to March 13.

However, it said the Covid-19 virus outbreak has “had an immediate and significant impact on trading, and ongoing developments indicate that this will be a sustained national situation”.