Less than a month after HMV said that its Brighton branches were likely to escape the closures across the company, the store in Western Road has shut.
Ten staff worked at the Western Road store and the company said that it would try to offer them jobs in the Churchill Square branch or elsewhere if possible.
HMV Group, which owns the HMV chain and Waterstone’s, said in early January that it had suffered from poor trading in the run-up to Christmas, in part because of the snowy weather.
It said that it would close 40 of its 285 HMV branches and 20 of its 320 Waterstone’s bookshops.
Brighton and Hove Business Forum warned at the time that HMV would struggle to keep two stores open in Brighton.
But the company responded by saying that the two branches served different markets.
It said that students were more likely to buy their CDs, DVDs and computer games from the Western Road store while families preferred the Churchill Square shop.
The Western Road shop closed on Sunday.
Elsewhere in the town, two shops close to the Grenadier pub in Hangleton have closed.
The Fancy Dress Box and clothes shop Susie’s, both in Queen’s Parade by the junction of Applesham Avenue and Hangleton Road, shut at the weekend blaming rent and rate rises.
Costume hires are being honoured.
A third shop in the otherwise busy parade has been empty for months.
And Jason’s sandwich and pie shop, opposite the newly opened Sainsbury’s in North Street, Brighton, has closed too.
