Town centre 'dying a death' as TK Maxx set to move
Town centre 'dying a death' as TK Maxx set to move
Simon Humphreys; Andrew Dawkins - West Midlands; Stuart George - BBC Radio StokeWed, July 22, 2026 at 7:05 AM UTC
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Maria Walley (left, pictured with Tonia Edwards) said now she had "just got to go elsewhere" rather than Hanley town centre
"The town is dying a death now. When I think back years ago, it was buzzing, a beautiful town".
Tonia Edwards believes the "soul" has been taken out of Hanley, in Stoke-on-Trent, and it is only going to get worse, after it emerged a TK Maxx store there is set to permanently close.
Edwards is among members of the public who have told the BBC there was now a "lack of people" in the city centre.
Signs show the fashion and homeware store in Hanley town centre "is closing 9 August", with a new TK Maxx opening on the Festival retail park four days later.
Stoke-on-Trent City Council says it is disappointed managers have decided to move out of the city centre. The BBC has invited the company to comment.
Edwards, from Newcastle-under-Lyme, said: "There's just nothing here to come for, it's all charity or vape shops, so what's the point?".
TK Maxx has announced the store in Hanley was closing on 9 August
Her friend Maria Walley, also from Newcastle, "won't be coming once it's closed, might as well go somewhere else where it's free parking".
Speaking in Hanley, she explained: "The trouble is we will go [to the Festival park], but where we would come here say weekly, we might go there every other week, even though that's free parking.
"[That's] because you've only got certain shops there to attract you."
Walley said she would have preferred to have come to Hanley and had "TX Maxx, Marks & Spencer and some more nice shops, but now we have all just got to go elsewhere".
Rents 'too expensive'
The Newcastle resident pointed out "there's hardly anyone walking around".
"The trouble is, if the rates are too high, the businesses won't be here, even... betting shops have decided they are shutting up shop," she said.
TK Maxx's departure will leave Primark as the last big name clothing store in the city centre.
Andy Hughes, said rents were "too expensive", adding he knew "a few people who had market stalls in Hanley and they ended up going down Stoke".
The Burslem resident reckoned online shopping was "partly to blame" for the city centre's woes.
Andy Hughes, seen here with Val Bennett, said the way the city centre "has gone, lack of people, lack of footfall, anti-social behaviour... it isn't going to survive"
Hughes said "the little cities, little towns, the big major ones, they can compete can't they with one and another"
"I mean you can get on a train [and] go [to] Manchester, Chester, Derby and Nottingham," he added.
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"Saturday you used to come up here, three or four hours - when The Potteries Centre opened you had the food courts inside it was fantastic and now look at it."
'Revitalise public spaces'
TK Maxx's announcement comes at a time when wider proposals from the council to revitalise the area are being highlighted.
The authority's "emerging city centre masterplan sets out a realistic, longer-term vision", a spokesperson said.
This vision was "to strengthen the retail and leisure offer, bring new homes into the city centre, revitalise public spaces, improve connections and celebrate Hanley's heritage and culture".
The council would continue working with the Business Improvement District group, "businesses, property owners and partners to support the city centre", they added.
Hughes said he thought "if Primark goes, that is it, it's finished"
Another shopper, Maz, commented Hanley was "becoming a little bit run down, a bit like Newcastle, lots of homeless, lots of empty shops".
"I come here and don't feel completely safe to be honest, because of the amount of homeless people and drunk people," she said.
"If Primark goes, I won't be coming up to Hanley, that's where I do most of my grand kids' shopping."
Maz (centre, pictured with nine-year-old Harmony, left, and Zoe, right) appealed to council leader Jane Ashworth to "put some more money back into the town"
Zoe said: "I don't think enough money is being put in to it, to keep it alive.
"I just think [Hanley] has become a very scary place to come by yourself."
Speaking on BBC Radio Stoke in Ask Ashworth, council leader Jane Ashworth explained that "wouldn't it have been a lot better" if previous plans to turn the Festival park into a space for industry had happened.
"It wouldn't have then become a shopping magnet pulling the big stores out of Hanley," she said.
"It's not far enough away to be an out of city retail park, so you have set up a conflict there and Festival park at the moment is winning that conflict."
The new TK Maxx store on the retail park is to open on 13 August
The "odds are against" Hanley being "the great shopping centre with all the big brands", Ashworth agreed.
"So, we have to make it residential to increase footfall, we need to make it a place to do stuff you like to do, so restaurants, coffee bars, arts centres, sports activity centres, something for you, your family, your mates to go to with fewer shops, probably smarter shops."
The leader added a initiative used elsewhere in England would be to establish a Urban Development Corporation, which "would be run by someone who is absolutely top drawer in negotiating big financial deals".
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Related internet links
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Stoke-on-Trent City Council
TK Maxx
Primark
Source: “AOL Money”
