THE difficult retail climate has this week claimed two city centre stores.

Fashion retailer GIVe shut the doors of its Liverpool One outlet earlier this week, while music chain HMV is closing its Bold Street store on Sunday as part of the first wave of a programme to shut 40 shops this year.

HMV’s like-for-like sales for UK and Ireland were down 13.6% for the five weeks to January 1. It is also facing a battle to meet a test on its bank covenants in April.

Most of its store closures are expected to come in places where HMV has more than one outlet, and the closure of Bold Street – which was opened after its Church Street store was demolished as part of the Liverpool One development – was not a surprise.

However, its speed was, with staff only told this week that it would be the store’s last.

An HMV spokesperson said: “We can confirm that we are closing this store at the end of the week – mainly as there is a much larger HMV nearby in Liverpool One.

“Affected store colleagues have been informed, and we have now entered into a period of consultation with them. Where possible, we will look to redeploy a number of them to other HMV stores in the vicinity.”