Wynsors, the northern value footwear chain that trades as Wynsors World of Shoes, is closing 17 of its 47 stores, and closing-down sales at the affected branches have now stepped up to discounts of as much as 60%. The programme, first reported by The Sun on 18 August 2026 and confirmed in a company statement, follows the company voluntary arrangement (CVA) that owner Modella Capital briefed staff on in early June. A fresh round of regional coverage on 14 September, led by Newsquest titles including The Northern Echo, The Bolton News and the Lancashire Telegraph, has put the list back in front of shoppers as the first branches shut for good.
This piece sets out every town on the list, what is known about timings and discounts, why the chain is shrinking by more than a third, and what the closures mean for the 17 high streets and retail parks losing a shoe shop this autumn.
In short
- 17 stores are closing out of 47, all in the north of England and the Midlands: Crewe, Leeds, Sheffield, Wakefield, Fleetwood, Burnley, Oldham, Salford, Bury, Rochdale, Hanley, Birkenhead, Bootle, Bacup, Bolton, Gateshead and Sunderland.
- No single closure date has been announced. Birkenhead has already shut, Hanley is due to close at the end of September, and the rest are trading through closing-down sales that started at 30% off and have risen to 50% and now up to 60%.
- The cause is a CVA proposed on 2 June 2026, which sought rent cuts at 36 of 47 stores, the exit from a number of sites, the closure of two distribution centres and the loss of roughly 100 of about 400 jobs.
- Owner Modella Capital bought Wynsors in November 2025. Two of its other 2026 purchases, Claire’s UK and The Original Factory Shop, collapsed into administration in January, and its TG Jones chain (the former WHSmith high-street shops) is closing stores this month.
- The remaining 30 stores and the website continue to trade as normal, according to the company, and the chain says the closures affect only the named branches.
Which 17 Wynsors stores are closing?
The full list of closing branches, as reported by The Sun and repeated by Newsquest titles on 14 September, covers 17 towns and cities across Greater Manchester, Lancashire, Merseyside, Yorkshire, Cheshire, Staffordshire and the North East. Wynsors has not published a single national list on its own site, so the record below is assembled from the company statement and from local reporting on individual branches.
| Region | Closing stores | What local reporting adds |
|---|---|---|
| Greater Manchester | Bolton, Bury, Oldham, Rochdale, Salford | Rochdale sale reported at up to 60% off; The Bolton News confirmed the Bolton closure on 14 September |
| Lancashire | Burnley, Fleetwood, Bacup | Bacup is the chain’s home town; the Lancashire Telegraph counts three county branches on the list |
| Merseyside and Wirral | Birkenhead, Bootle | Birkenhead (Europa Centre) has closed; nearest remaining stores are Knotty Ash, St Helens and Warrington |
| Yorkshire | Leeds, Sheffield, Wakefield | Wynsors’ historic heartland; the company’s first out-of-town shop opened near Rotherham in 1984 |
| Cheshire | Crewe | Closing-down sale under way since 18 August, now up to 60% off |
| Staffordshire | Hanley (Stoke-on-Trent) | Marsh Street North store due to close at the end of September |
| North East | Gateshead, Sunderland | Gateshead sale reported at up to 60%; The Northern Echo confirmed both closures on 14 September |
Two things stand out in the geography. First, the list is concentrated in the towns that built the business: Wynsors grew out of West Yorkshire market stalls and Lancashire out-of-town units, and it is those markets that are now losing branches. Second, the chain is closing the store in Bacup, the Rossendale town where its head office sits, which underlines that the exits were chosen on lease economics rather than sentiment.
The company statement, first issued in August and repeated this week, reads: “It’s with sadness that we announce that certain Wynsors stores will be closing their doors. We’d like to say a huge thank you to all of our customers who have shopped with us and supported the store over the years. Your support has meant so much to the whole team.” Wynsors added that the closures affect only the selected stores, with other branches continuing to trade as normal.
When do the stores close and how big are the discounts?
There is no single shutdown date. Wynsors has described the closures as a rolling process in which each affected branch holds a closing-down sale until stock is cleared, then shuts. The discount ladder has moved in three steps since the announcement, which is the most reliable signal of how far along each branch is.
| Date | Development | Discount reported |
|---|---|---|
| 2 June 2026 | Staff briefed on CVA proposal; store exits flagged but not named | None |
| 18 August 2026 | 17-store list reported; closing-down sales begin (Crewe, Hanley, Birkenhead first) | Up to 30% on selected lines |
| 20 to 21 August 2026 | National coverage of the full list | Up to 50% |
| Late August 2026 | Birkenhead Europa Centre store closes | Sale ended |
| 12 to 14 September 2026 | Second wave of regional coverage as sales deepen; Hanley scheduled to close by end of month | Up to 60% |
Local reporting fills in some of the gaps. Stoke Nub News reported on 18 August that the Hanley branch on Marsh Street North would close at the end of September. Wirral Today reported on 19 August that the Birkenhead store was clearing stock at 30% off, and the Liverpool Echo reported on 28 August that the “last store” in the Europa Centre had closed, leaving Wirral Council weighing “all options” for the building. For the remaining branches, the practical rule is that a 60% sticker usually means weeks rather than months of trading left.
Shoppers holding Wynsors gift cards or wanting to return items bought at a closing branch should act before the local store shuts. The company has not published separate returns arrangements for closing stores, so the safe assumption is that standard terms apply while the branch is open and that returns will need to go to another store or through the website afterwards.
Why is Wynsors closing more than a third of its estate?
The closures are the visible end of a restructuring that began in the first week of June. On 2 June 2026, Sky News’ Mark Kleinman reported that Modella Capital had briefed Wynsors staff on plans for a company voluntary arrangement. City AM, Business Live and TheBusinessDesk followed the same day with the core numbers: rent cuts sought at 36 of the chain’s 47 stores, a number of stores expected to close outright, two distribution centres at risk, and more than 100 of roughly 400 jobs on the line.
Chief executive Adam Foster set out the company’s reasoning in a statement reported by City AM: “Regrettably, the severity of the challenges we have faced, ranging from an extremely difficult trading environment to a significant cyber-attack disrupting our core operations, have made this restructuring unavoidable. This has been an incredibly difficult decision, and I want to acknowledge the impact they will have on those colleagues who will be affected. This CVA is a necessary step to give Wynsors a viable future.” The company also cited “fiscal and regulatory headwinds”, a phrase that in 2026 usually points at the April 2025 employer National Insurance rise, the higher National Living Wage and the business rates bill that, as the ACS Local Shop Report 2026 found for convenience stores, has nearly doubled in two years.
What a CVA does to a shop estate
A CVA is a formal deal between a company and its creditors, approved if 75% by value of those voting back it, that lets the business keep trading while paying back a portion of its debts over a fixed period. In retail the device is used almost entirely to reset rents. Landlords are sorted into tiers: some stores keep full rent, some take steep cuts, and the weakest sites are handed back with the lease surrendered. The 17 closures are, in effect, the bottom tier of the Wynsors CVA.
The outcome of the creditor vote was not widely reported over the summer, but the sequence since is consistent with the proposal going through: the store exits flagged in June became a named list in August, and the closing-down sales are now clearing stock. Wynsors has not confirmed which of its distribution sites will close.
The landlord side of the arrangement is the part shoppers never see but which decides which towns keep a store. Under the proposal, 36 of 47 landlords were asked to accept lower rent, and a CVA passes on a creditor vote in which landlords are counted by the value of their claims, so a handful of large institutional owners of retail parks can carry or sink it. Landlords who have been through the TG Jones, Claire’s and Original Factory Shop processes in the same 12 months have had reason to look hard at any Modella proposal, and the mix of retained and closed sites suggests that in at least some towns the rent cut on offer was accepted while in others the lease was handed back.
The July 2025 cyber-attack
The event that turned a difficult trading year into a sale process was a cyber-attack in July 2025. Modella’s own account of the deal says the attack “significantly impacted” the retailer’s financial performance and that the previous owners, principally the Riverside and Florence Charitable Trusts, decided to sell as a result. Wynsors was one of several UK retailers hit that year, in a period that also saw major incidents at larger chains, and for a business built on thin value-footwear margins the disruption to stock and order systems arrived at the worst possible point in the back-to-school cycle.
Who owns Wynsors and what is Modella Capital’s record?
Wynsors is the trading name of Courtesy Shoes Ltd, founded in 1956 and headquartered in Bacup, Rossendale. According to the company’s own history it began as market-hall stalls, bought and rebranded two small high-street chains in the 1960s, ran shoe concessions inside Kwik Save supermarkets in the 1970s, and moved out of town from 1984, when a former Wynsor House carpet discounter near Rotherham became the first “Wynsors World of Shoes”. It sells its own labels alongside Adidas, Nike, Skechers, Clarks, Timberland and Crocs, with school shoes as the core seasonal trade.
Modella Capital acquired the business in November 2025, at which point it ran 47 stores and what Modella described as “a growing ecommerce platform”. Modella is a London private equity firm formed in 2022 as Tailer Debtco and renamed a year later; it is part of Hay Wain Group, the family office of turnaround investor Jamie Constable, with Steve Curtis as chairman and Joseph Price as managing director. By March 2026, FashionNetwork reported, the firm was already considering a sale of Wynsors, just months after buying it.
The Wynsors closures sit inside a broader pattern at Modella. Its portfolio now spans Hobbycraft, TG Jones, Flying Tiger Copenhagen and Dealz Poland, and its September calendar already included the TG Jones closure of 19 shops, with around 150 of the former WHSmith stores reported to be at risk in a wider restructuring. The table below summarises the outcomes to date.
| Modella investment | Bought | Status in September 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Hobbycraft | August 2024 | Trading; cited by Modella as its turnaround success |
| The Original Factory Shop | February 2025 | Administration, January 2026; stores closed |
| TG Jones (ex-WHSmith high street) | June 2025 | 19 closures in September; ~150 stores reported at risk |
| Claire’s UK and Ireland | September 2025 | Administration, January 2026; 291 stores closed combined with TOFS |
| Wynsors | November 2025 | CVA; 17 of 47 stores closing |
| Flying Tiger Copenhagen | May 2026 | Trading; ~1,000 stores globally, about 80 in the UK |
| Dealz Poland | June 2026 | Trading |
Modella’s line is that it buys distressed chains no one else will touch and that some will not survive. Joseph Price’s quote on the firm’s Wynsors page says it is “committed to working with Wynsors’ management team to return the business to profitability” and sees “an opportunity to stabilise and strengthen the business over time”. Critics, including landlords who have now faced three Modella restructurings in a year, read the record differently. What is not in dispute is that Modella has moved faster to cut than any other owner on the UK high street in 2026.
What happens to Wynsors staff?
The June proposal put more than 100 of around 400 jobs at risk, roughly a quarter of the workforce. Wynsors has not published a store-by-store headcount, so the figure for the 17 closing branches is not known precisely; value shoe stores typically run small teams, and 17 branches plus two distribution centres is consistent with the June estimate. The company said in June it would support affected colleagues but has not detailed redeployment to the surviving stores.
Because Wynsors is in a CVA rather than administration, the employer remains solvent and is responsible for statutory redundancy pay, notice and accrued holiday in the normal way. That is a materially better position than staff at the Merseyside bakery chain Sayers found themselves in this month, where a refused CVA led to same-day closures and unpaid final wages routed to the Redundancy Payments Service. Wynsors staff with two or more years’ service are entitled to statutory redundancy pay calculated on age, length of service and weekly pay up to the statutory cap.
Staff at closing stores should also check whether the company is offering transfers to the nearest surviving branch, since several closing towns sit within a short distance of stores that stay open. For Birkenhead the company itself named Knotty Ash, St Helens and Warrington as the nearest alternatives; similar pairings are likely for the Greater Manchester cluster, where five closures leave a dense remaining network.
What do the closures mean for the towns losing a store?
The Wynsors format is a large-footprint discount shoe store, usually on a retail park, in a market-hall annexe or on a secondary shopping street rather than a prime high-street pitch. That makes each closure less of a headline than a department store exit, but the units are hard to re-let: they are big, cheap and in locations that were chosen precisely because rents were low. Two of the affected sites show the range of local consequences.
Birkenhead’s Europa Centre
The Birkenhead store sat in the Europa Centre, a council-owned block just outside Birkenhead Shopping Centre that Wirral Council bought in March 2018. The centre has lost Wilko and, in June 2026, its Mecca Bingo hall, and Wirral Today reported that only one unit was expected to remain in use once Wynsors left. The Liverpool Echo reported on 28 August that the council was considering “all options” for the building, in the context of a town-centre regeneration that is moving the market into the former TJ Hughes store.
Hanley and the Potteries
In Stoke-on-Trent, the Marsh Street North store is due to close at the end of September, and The Sentinel described the exit on 5 September as a “big blow for Hanley” and the “latest big-name shop to shut”. Hanley has been losing chains steadily for several years, and each departure shifts more of the city’s shoe trade to the out-of-town retail parks and to the supermarkets that now sell school shoes at similar price points.
The Greater Manchester cluster
Five of the 17 closures, Bolton, Bury, Oldham, Rochdale and Salford, sit inside Greater Manchester, which makes the county the single biggest loser in the programme. That is partly a function of density: Wynsors had built a ring of large discount units around the conurbation, and a CVA that ranks stores by rent against sales will always find overlapping catchments first. The Bolton News reported the Bolton closure on 14 September as part of the nationwide wave, and Rochdale is among the stores already at 60% off.
For shoppers the cluster is also the easiest to absorb, because the surviving Wynsors network remains thickest in the same county and the retail parks along the M60 and M62 carry Shoe Zone, Deichmann and Sports Direct within a few miles of each closing branch. For the five town centres the loss is more specific: each is a secondary shopping location that had kept a large footwear anchor when others left, and the units are big enough that the next occupier is more likely to be a gym, a discount grocer or nothing at all than another shoe shop.
The wider pattern is one this site has tracked across the north this month. B&M’s decision to close its County Road store in Walton and send Liverpool shoppers a mile away, TG Jones closures that take Post Office counters with them, and now Wynsors all point the same way: chains are editing their estates down to the sites that clear a higher rent-and-rates hurdle, and the marginal town-centre units are the ones that go. For shoppers the practical effect is longer trips, and for landlords it is a growing stock of large secondary units with no obvious tenant.
How does Wynsors compare with other 2026 closure programmes?
Wynsors is a mid-sized case in a year that has produced several larger ones. The comparison below uses figures reported by the companies or by trade and national press; it is not exhaustive, and the numbers move as programmes progress.
| Retailer | Closures | Share of estate | Mechanism |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wynsors | 17 | 36% of 47 | CVA |
| TG Jones | 19 in September; up to 150 permitted | 4% now; up to ~33% | Court-sanctioned Part 26A restructuring plan |
| Claire’s UK and Ireland plus The Original Factory Shop | 291 combined | 100% | Administration, January 2026 |
| Sayers and Poundbakery | 30-plus | Not disclosed | CVA refused; closures 5 September |
| British Heart Foundation shops | Around 150 | Minority of a large estate | Charity estate review |
| LK Bennett; Quiz | All remaining stores | 100% | Administration |
| Poundland | Programme under Gordon Brothers; ~900 shops in play | n/a | Sale talks with Poundstretcher’s owner |
Two distinctions matter for anyone reading the Wynsors list. The first is that a CVA leaves a going concern behind: 30 stores and a website will still carry the name, which is not true of Claire’s, TOFS, LK Bennett or Quiz. The second is ownership. Where Poundland’s future turns on a possible tie-up with Poundstretcher’s owner, Wynsors’ future turns on whether Modella keeps it or sells it, and the March report that a sale was already being considered suggests the current owner does not see itself as the long-term one.
Where does Wynsors go from here?
The surviving chain is 30 stores, concentrated in Yorkshire, Lancashire, Greater Manchester, Merseyside and the North East, plus wynsors.com. That is roughly the size the business was in the early 2000s, before the branded-trainer expansion that took it to 47. The CVA’s rent reductions at the retained stores, if agreed on the terms proposed, lower the fixed cost base going into the autumn and winter boot season, which is the second of the chain’s two seasonal peaks after back-to-school.
Three external factors will shape the next 12 months. The first is the 28 October Budget, where independent retail bodies are pressing Chancellor John Healey to restore higher retail, hospitality and leisure business rates relief; a value footwear chain with large units is unusually exposed to rates. The second is the value footwear market itself, where Wynsors competes with Shoe Zone, Deichmann, Sports Direct, Primark, Matalan and the supermarkets, all of which have widened their school-shoe and trainer ranges. The third is the online channel, which Modella described as “growing” at the point of purchase and which will need to absorb the custom of 17 towns.
The value footwear market Wynsors trades in
The UK value shoe market has consolidated around a few formats. Shoe Zone runs a large, mainly high-street estate with a big-box variant; Deichmann has expanded from retail parks; Sports Direct and JD own branded trainers; and Primark, Matalan, Tesco, Asda and Sainsbury’s sell school shoes at price points that undercut specialist chains. Wynsors’ historic edge was breadth, offering branded and own-label footwear under one large roof at retail-park rents. The CVA is, in effect, a bet that the format still works at 30 stores where it did not at 47.
What should shoppers in the affected towns do now?
For customers the closures are mostly a question of timing. The practical steps below reflect what the company has said publicly and standard consumer rights; nothing here is store-specific advice from Wynsors.
- Use gift cards and vouchers at the closing branch before it shuts, or at any surviving store or online. A CVA does not cancel gift cards, but a closed branch cannot redeem them.
- Return faulty or unwanted items promptly. Statutory rights under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 continue because the company is trading, but the local counter disappears once the store closes.
- Treat closing-down sale stock as final clearance. Check sizes carefully; closing branches are unlikely to hold replacement stock for exchanges.
- Check the nearest surviving store. The company has named alternatives for some towns (for Birkenhead: Knotty Ash, St Helens and Warrington) and the store finder on wynsors.com lists the retained estate.
- Keep receipts for school shoes bought in the sale. Warranty claims on branded footwear can still be pursued with the retailer or, in some cases, the brand.
For independent shoe shops and other traders in the 17 towns, the closure of a large discount competitor is a short-term opportunity and a long-term warning. The immediate effect is that school-shoe and winter-boot demand in those towns needs a new home; the longer-term lesson, from a chain that survived seven decades and fell to a cyber-attack and a rent bill, is that the cost base matters more than the brand.
FAQ
Which Wynsors stores are closing?
Seventeen branches: Crewe, Leeds, Sheffield, Wakefield, Fleetwood, Burnley, Oldham, Salford, Bury, Rochdale, Hanley, Birkenhead, Bootle, Bacup, Bolton, Gateshead and Sunderland. The list was reported by The Sun on 18 August 2026 and confirmed by regional titles on 14 September. Wynsors says its other 30 stores and its website continue to trade as normal.
When will the Wynsors stores close?
There is no single national date. Each branch runs a closing-down sale until stock is cleared and then shuts. Birkenhead closed in late August, Hanley is scheduled to close at the end of September, and other stores are at up to 60% off, which usually signals the final weeks of trading.
Is Wynsors going into administration?
No. Wynsors is restructuring through a company voluntary arrangement, a formal deal with creditors that keeps the company trading and solvent while rents are cut and weak stores are exited. Administration is a different, more severe insolvency process. The closures are the exit tier of the CVA rather than a wind-down of the business.
Who owns Wynsors?
Modella Capital, a London private equity firm owned by Jamie Constable’s Hay Wain Group, bought Wynsors from its previous owners, principally the Riverside and Florence Charitable Trusts, in November 2025. Modella also owns Hobbycraft, TG Jones, Flying Tiger Copenhagen and Dealz Poland, and previously owned Claire’s UK and The Original Factory Shop, both of which entered administration in January 2026.
How many jobs are affected at Wynsors?
The June 2026 CVA proposal put more than 100 of roughly 400 jobs at risk, about a quarter of the workforce, across the closing stores and two distribution centres. Wynsors has not published a per-store figure. Because the company remains solvent, statutory redundancy pay and notice are the employer’s responsibility rather than the government’s Redundancy Payments Service.
Why is Wynsors closing stores?
The company cited an extremely difficult trading environment, fiscal and regulatory headwinds, and the operational impact of a cyber-attack in July 2025 that disrupted core systems and, according to Modella, significantly hurt financial performance. The CVA sought rent cuts at 36 of 47 stores and the exit from the sites that could not be made to pay.
Can I still use a Wynsors gift card or return items?
Yes, while the company trades. Gift cards can be used at closing branches until they shut, at surviving stores and online. Returns follow the company’s normal policy and statutory consumer rights; once a branch closes, returns will need to go to another store or through the website, so acting before the local closure is the safer option.
Which Wynsors stores are staying open?
Wynsors has not published a retained-store list alongside the closure list, but the 30 surviving branches are spread across Yorkshire, Lancashire, Greater Manchester, Merseyside, Cheshire and the North East. For Birkenhead customers the company named Knotty Ash, St Helens and Warrington as the nearest alternatives. The store finder on wynsors.com is the authoritative source for current locations.
What to watch next
The next confirmed marker is the end-of-September closure in Hanley; after that, the 60% discount tier at Crewe, Rochdale and Gateshead suggests those branches will follow in October. Beyond the stores, the questions that will decide whether the 30-store Wynsors is a stable business are whether Modella completes the sale it was reported to be weighing in March, whether the CVA’s rent terms hold through the winter, and what the 28 October Budget does to the business rates bill that value retailers on large units carry. This site will update the list as individual branches confirm closure dates.