Wilko administration: Portsmouth's Arundel Street will close for the final time this weekend following chain's UK collapse

The discount high street chain’s popular shop in Arundel Street is set to close tomorrow (Sunday, October 8.) By next week, all branches of Wilko in the UK will be shut. Some of the vacant units are set to become branches of Poundland. As the shop is in it’s final weekend of trading, customers can expect any remaining stock to be heavily discounted.

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The closure will follow that of other Hampshire locations including in Havant’s Meridian Centre and Fareham’s West Street. It was announced in August that the homeware retail chain would collapse, with an estimated 12,000 jobs put at risk and around 400 stores to be emptied.

The Wilko brand will not disappear entirely from the UK high street after The Range agreed to buy Wilko’s brand, website and intellectual property, with plans to sell the acquired brand in its stores.

Wilko was originally founded by James Kemsey Wilkinson in Leicester in 1930 and employed 12,500 workers before its collapse.