'We've been open for 140 years, but Rachel Reeves made us close'

Department store falls victim to the Budget

- By Matthew Dooley

ONE of Britain’s oldest department stores is holding a “Rachel Reeves Closing Down Sale” as it shuts up shop after 140 years.

Posters plastered over Beales in Poole, Dorset, include a picture of the Chancellor whose Budget tax hikes made the family business “unviable”, according to boss Tony Brown.

He had the posters made as a “poke in the ribs” for the Government on behalf of the whole retail industry, as he warned many more traditional stores could be forced to close.

Mr Brown said the rises in employ-ers’ National Insurance contributions and the minimum wage brought in on April 1, combined with the reduction in business rates relief, had cost the firm £200,000.

He added: “This, coupled with the risks and uncertainty of further tax increases in the coming years, have left us no other option.

Crippling