Whitfords Warehouse Bunnings announces shock closure
A Bunnings Warehouse store that has served its community for more than two decades will shut down forever within a few months.
Retail
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Bunnings Warehouse Whitfords has been serving its Western Australia community for more than two decades – but it will close down for good within months.
In a statement released today, the company confirmed the store, north of Perth, would shut ahead of its lease expiring in October.
The last day of trading will be August 30, with staff then working to clear the premises by October after closing to the public.
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Bunnings regional operations manager Hayley Coulson said the closure would not result in job losses.
“The Whitfords Warehouse is one of our older stores and we’ve made the decision to service customers from our surrounding stores, rather than commit to a further lease term,” Ms Coulson said.
“All of the current Whitfords team members will transfer to alternative stores and our focus is on working with them and supporting them throughout this transition.
“The Bunnings Whitfords team has done a great job serving local customers and the local community for more than 20 years.”
Ms Coulson said the company was “constantly looking at our store network and our needs in the local areas in which we operate, to ensure we have the best offer available for local customers”.
The surrounding stores in Joondalup, Wangara, Balcatta and Innaloo will be able to service the local community after the Whitfords branch folds, with the Joondalup outlet located around 6km from the current Whitfords store.
The company said both Joondalup and Wangara offer customers a newer, wider and improved offer, and that the closure would not affect Bunnings’ “ongoing commitment in WA” or store opening plans.
There are “new and improved replacement stores” planned for Albany, Midland and
Maddington, as well as a new smaller format store in Northam.
However, it’s not the only major retail closure to be announced today, with Wesfarmers earlier revealing up to 75 Australian Target stores will be permanently shut within months and as many as 92 converted into Kmart stores.
The drastic restructure means around half of Target’s 284 Australian stores could be affected.
Wesfarmers – which owns both Target and Kmart – also revealed $780 million of writedowns on its Kmart Group and industrial and safety branch, and a number of plans designed to “accelerate the growth of Kmart” and “address the unsustainable financial performance of Target”.
Originally published as Whitfords Warehouse Bunnings announces shock closure