IN PICTURES: Looking back at retailers that called Peterborough their home

The official confirmation by shopping giant Frasers that it is moving into Peterborough’s Queensgate Shopping Centre is a major boost for the city’s retail heart.

Frasers says it will open its much-loved concept store featuring a range of ‘aspirational brands’ plus a 30,000 square feet Sports Direct with a USC, Jack Wills and GAME using up all the space once occupied by department store John Lewis until its closure three years ago.

It is a major success for the Queensgate centre owners, Invesco, which seems to have been unable to stop a steady trickle of retailers moving out of the 41-year-old mall.

The growth of online shopping, which was accelerated during the Covid-19 pandemic, followed by international conflict, supply chain difficulties and runaway prices have encouraged a growing number of retailers to reduce the number of stores.

Here we take a look back in pictures at some of the retailers that once graced the city and find that change has been taking place over more years than perhaps we care to remember.

The demise of BHS, which occupied two floors in the Queensgate centre, was seen as a blow for the mall’s bosses but its space has been taken up by a number of other retailers.

Other stores to leave the centre include fashion retailer Next and Joules and music store HMV.

Changes in shopping trends are not to blame for all the closures. A financial crisis caused the collapse of travel giant Thomas Cook which left a hole in both the Queensgate and the Serpentine Green Shopping Centre in Hampton.