THE announcement that another town centre shop will soon close its doors is a 'devastating' blow for Barrow.

Furness Home Interiors is the latest shopping outlet to reveal it is shutting its Portland Walk premises.

The furniture shop follows Debenhams, Topshop, River Island, Pandora and Thorntons who have already vacated the section of town in recent years.

Body Shop and WHSmith will also be leaving Portland Walk later this month.

A spokesman for Furness Home Interior said: "We have made a tough decision to close down our store on Portland Walk and work only from our warehouse,

"Once we re-open on Wednesday, January 5 at 10am, we will be holding a huge closing down sale where everything in the store must go.

"We really appreciate all the customers we have had visit the store and we hope to continue to serve you through our online portals.

"This will not affect any current orders as we will still be trading from our warehouse."

Colin Garnett, Barrow BID manager, said town centre shopping has 'changed' - and high business rates are deterring retailers from moving in.

He said: "It is real shame that Furness Home Interiors have decided to close their Portland Walk store and concentrate on other ways of reaching customers.

"We all know that Portland Walk has been devastated by closures in the past 12 months and the impending closures of Furness Home Interiors, WH Smiths and Body Shop will leave a huge hole in the retail core of the town.

"One of the main issues of the Portland Walk retail units is their rateable value, which is based on past footfall and the historic value of the properties.

"As a BID we are enthused that the Government are seeking to tackle business rates and went some way to levelling the playing field with online businesses.

"The problem is that where their business rates reduction, outlined in the last budget (October 2021), might have been good for all bricks and mortar businesses, it didn’t address the fact that properties within the retail core of towns are still paying higher business rates than properties on the outskirts or outside of town centres.

"Until a full re-evaluation of properties is undertaken retail core properties aren’t an affordable option to independent shops and businesses.

"Town centre shopping has changed and towns are having to reinvent themselves with a mix of retail, leisure, hospitality, offices and residential.

"Upper floors can be transformed into town centre living accommodation, but until the chasm in the rateable value of premises has been reduced, it is going to be extremely hard for landlords to attract commercial businesses to take on retail core units.

"We wish Furness Home Interiors all the best in the future and hope that one day they might look at town centre retail as a viable option again."