A popular clothes store in Sidmouth is facing permanent closure.

New Look is aiming to reduce its UK store estate and rental costs, citing ‘challenged trading performance’ and a ‘difficult retail environment’ as the reasons.

Sidmouth’s Fore Street-based outlet is one of 60 stores identified by New Look for potential closure, alongside a further six sites which are sub-let to third parties.

The proposal also includes a reduction in rental costs and revised lease terms across 393 stores.

Alistair McGeorge, executive chairman of New Look, said: “Given our challenged trading performance and over-rented UK store estate, we are having to take tough but necessary actions to reduce our fixed cost base and restore long-term profitability.

“We have held constructive discussions with our key landlords and strategic partners and will now seek creditor approval on our CVA proposal.

“A priority for us is to keep all potentially affected colleagues informed during this difficult time.”

New Look is seeking creditor approval on the proposal, which is due on March 21.

The company says all UK stores will remain open as normal during the period of the proposal and its online sales channel will be ‘completely unaffected’ by the proposed changes.

The proposal involves a requirement to make redundancies from the stores which have been identified for potential closure, expected to be a maximum of 980 colleagues amongst the company’s current UK staff base of 15,300 people.

New Looks says all efforts will be made to redeploy colleagues within the business where possible.