A NATIONAL chain has confirmed that is is leaving Barrow's high street in a matter of months.

WHSmith will be leaving it's Portland Walk property in January, at the expiration of their lease.

The company said the move comes due them being unable to trade viably from the location.

They are one of a number of businesses to vacate the high street in recent years, with others including Debenhams, Bonmarche, Topshop, River Island and Thorntons.

WHSmith said that store colleagues will be supported in the process, and will be redeployed to nearby stores where possible.

The nearest WHSmith stores are located in Millom and Carnforth.

The company have not confirmed the number of staff that will be affected by the closure.

A WHSmith spokesperson said: "We can confirm that the WHSmith store in Barrow-in-Furness will be closing in January.

"Unfortunately, we are unable to continue to trade viably from this location and the decision has been taken to close the store as a result of the lease expiry.

"As one of the largest supporters of the UK high street, we are disappointed to be losing our presence in Barrow-in-Furness and we would like to thank all our customers for their support and for shopping with us.

"We are also extremely grateful for the commitment of our in store colleagues who we will support with this transition and redeploy to nearby stores, where possible.”

Barrow Bid Manager Colin Garnett described the closure as a "domino effect" as the high street loses yet another business.

He said: "It's not really come as a shock to me but its obviously not good for the businesses around it either.

We have obviously got to look at how we can change and how we can attract different things into these buildings.

"It’s going to be an interesting five year journey for us as a BID on how we can start to replace these national high street retail chains with something else.

"If we get the levelling up funding from the government we can look at creating an event space in the outside market and we can start doing specialist markets and things like that."

Barrow and Furness MP Simon Fell labelled the decision as "really sad news", but said that it has highlighted the challenges currently faced by businesses.

He said: "This is really sad news - that WHSmith is a very good store.

"However, its closure highlights exactly the challenges that the high street is facing - business rates that are too high and a drop in footfall.

"That's why I've called for the Chancellor to reduce business rates in the upcoming budget and also why the £25million Town Deal and £16million levelling up fund bid are so crucial to turning Barrow's high street around."