Staff at a second business which has a store at Westwood Cross are also facing an uncertain future as it gets ready to appoint administrators.
Select clothing store filed a notice of intention at the high court on March 27 to appoint an administrator.
The chain employs some 2,000 people. It is understood Quantuma will handle the administration process.
Select launched a Company Voluntary Arrangement (CVA) – which involves paying creditors over a fixed period – last year. It has launched the same process in 2008.
Today it was announced that administrators Chad Griffin, Simon Kirkhope and Andrew Johnson of FTI Consulting LLP have been appointed to Debenhams and have sold the group to its lenders.
The announcement this afternoon (April 9) says: “The plc Administrators have immediately sold all of plc’s ownership of the Group to a newly incorporated company controlled by the Group’s secured lenders in a pre-packaged sale.”
This means the business, which has debts of some £640million, will continue to trade as usual for now under the control of a group of lenders and releases access to £200million. Lenders include banks and US hedge funds.
I think Westwood Cross should be renamed Westwood Loss. If I am bored and want to lose a couple of hours over the weekend I drive to Westwood Cross and try to find a parking space. One has more chance of bumping into the Pope doing his weekly shopping than finding somewhere to park so I drive out yet another loss sale for the stores.
Westwoodcross should never have been built ,! Nowhere to shelter from the wind & rain , all stores far to expensive and who want to carry shopping say from the range all the way over the busy road to all the main shopping centre
The design and shopping experience at Westwood Cross is very poor. There are 4 different sections seperated by busy roads going through the middle of it. No pedestrian bridges or tunnels so customers are in and out of cars going section to section. Then you have to negotiate getting out from the main car parks and being forced to drive all the way round the back of sainsbury’s when there are deadends that could be opened to alleviate the queues. It’s not good for environment with all the traffic jams up there. An undercover shopping centre would have been nice but Thanet got this damp, windy city nightmare.
The original plan with Westwood Cross was to shut the main Westwood roundabout and make it for pedestrians & Buses only during off peak hours 10am-4pm. And to utilise the ring roads around the area during these times. As a way to allow people to navigate the 4 sections on foot. The Tesco stores road was to be adopted by KCC and brought up to standard to complete the ring road. Ill thought out I feel as all roads around Westwood cross should have been dual carriageways in the first place to allow traffic flow and pedestrian/cycle friendly bridges built to facilitate the separation of pedestrian from traffic. Funded in part by the developers as a constraint on them developing the shopping centre. Again no forward thinking by Thanet or Kent County Councils. We will have to wait and see what other ‘Grand Schemes’ Thanet and KCC come up with in this regard.