Metropol

Yes, the one in Leeds is still open too. I was surprised as well!

Manchester Arndale's was bought by Head and then quickly became an HMV. To go with the other HMV in the same shopping centre.

And the other one across the street.

Nottingham's Zaavi is now HMV, but the Hull Zaavi is vacant. Possibly because there is a HMV already, and quite close to it too.

RE: WHSmith

The High Street Stores are branded as WHSmith Retail Ltd
The stations/airports are branded as WHSmith Travel Ltd

In Scotland the railway station stores still get their stock from John Menzies (Menzies Distribution Ltd) which is another wholy-owned subsidary of WHSmith Distribution Ltd.

However, a lot of the railway and airport station stores are actually sub-operated by a company called Select Service Partners who also provide most of the catering facilities on railway stations (Pumpkin, Quik Snaks, M&S Simply Food, bars, Millies Cookies etc) which in turn is also operate Rail Gourmet Holdings Ltd (who also provide catering on trains in the UK, Ireland, as well as a number of other companies around Europe - including, oddly enough, the Royal Train).

The hospital stores are usually operated by WHSmith Retail Ltd, with the exception of a few in Wales where they're operated by the WRVS on behalf of WHSmith.

I think in Ireland, WHSmith have an agreement with Easons to supply their Northern Irish stores with newspapers and books, but can't be sure on that one.


There is only one WHSmith Travel store which is not part of the WHSmith Travel brand and that's the old John Menzies store on Castle Street in Hinckley. Their trading statement in the window states "WHSmith Retail Ltd operated by WHSmith Travel Ltd on behalf of WHSmith Group plc".


With reference to WOOLWORTHS:

There was a number of Woolworths General Stores which popped up across the country around 2002 (Blackpool had one, as did Bournemouth from what I can remember) and these were operated as convienience stores where they sold everything from food to kids clothes, cigarettes, alcohol (some sites) as well as the usual Woolworths junk! The last one closed in 2007 when the Bournemouth store because a Cotswold Outdoor store.

Tsk at the lack of timeliness in your reply.

Sput wrote:Tsk at the lack of timeliness in your reply.

I apologise!

Poor defenceless creature, never stood a chance.

So anything much happened with the Woolworths stores around the country ? Or still vacant ?

Scuneh's Woolworths remains totally vacant and lifeless. The news-stand and the unit they kept the footballs in remain in the building, and the CCTV is still running, including the television showing the footage.

A few of the Woolworths stores have become Sainsbury's Local (altough the one in Cardiff (City Road) had the screws in for the ASDA logo originally). Dorchester as we know is now Wellworths, and I think one of the stores up North has become a co-op!

Woolies in St Andrews is empty, oddly the tills are still sitting all connected up, I'd ahve thought they'd have been one of the first things the administrators would remove.