Outdoor clothing shop Millets will disappear from the high street of a popular seaside town within weeks. Signs pinned to the shop door in Southsea, Portsmouth, announced a closing-down sale with 20% off "absolutely everything" to clear all stock before its final day of trading on February 28.

Millets, which specialises in clothing, footwear and equipment across 47 stores in the UK, had been a staple on Palmerston Road since 2011, which is minutes from the seafront. Locals had mixed reactions when the news was shared on local Facebook page, Love Southsea.

One disappointed customer wrote: "I got my camping stuff from there years ago, what's going on with the shopping experiences? Stop making the rent on the buildings so high and also keep stores on our streets, not everyone can access online."

However, another queried: "Have to ask, people saying it's sad that it's going, but how many of those people are regular shoppers in there?"

A third responded: "Depends what you mean by regular. It's not the sort of shop you would go in every week....maybe 2 or 3 times a year!"

Millets, which was founded in Southampton in 1893, also closed six shops in early 2025, and four of these were reopened and rebranded as the sister company, GO Outdoors.

Southsea will be dealt another blow just days later, with the closure of Lloyds Bank on the same road on March 9. The banking group attributed its widespread closures to the rise in online banking.

A spokesperson for Lloyds Banking Group previously stated: "The way people are banking has changed, with over 21 million customers choosing apps to manage their money."

It said that alongside the app, customers can use any Lloyds, Halifax or Bank of Scotland branch, the Post Office or banking hubs for their everyday banking, and deposit cash at over 30,000 PayPoint locations.