Courts shutting down Bexhill store

It says its stores, located where it's not easy to park, just can't compete with giants like DFS, Harveys and Furniture Village.

The loss-making Hastings store, in White Rock, closed its doors last Saturday after 42 years and the Bexhill store, open since 1984, closes tomorrow.

The St Leonards Road site has housed a furniture store for much of the last century

Hastings manager Luca Cervi has taken over as manager of Courts' Eastbourne store, and a further three staff opted to take redundancy. Some of the four staff at Bexhill are also transferring to Eastbourne.

Mark Thornton, regional manager of Courts (UK) Ltd, said: "In the last five or six years, with the proliferation of retail parks, we have found that the furniture customer has been sucked out of the High Street.

"We can't afford to have three stores in a small catchment area and we have invested a large amount of money in our Eastbourne site and taken the commercial decision to close Hastings and Bexhill. Hastings runs at a loss and Bexhill has just broken even for the last three or four years.

"A high level of maintenance is needed on the buildings, and the future looks fairly bleak.

Mr Thornton added: "We have sold both buildings to a property developer and the intention is, I believe, to retain the ground floors as retail space, with the upper floors becoming housing."

The two centres were among about 100 owned by Courts in the UK, which has more than 350 stores in 20 countries. Courts' website says its sales fell by 30m to 659m in the year 2001-2.

Hastings was the 39th store to open as the Cohen family expanded Courts' south-east presence in the post-war period.