World of Water Bicester Closing after 30 years

World of Water Bicester in Bicester Retail Village is closing after 30 years of trading. The site is one of the largest World of Water stores and used to be one of the busiest in the country. WOW announced the closure last week on its website and facebook page, and the store will close this month. All stock has been reduced, with an extra 20% off normal selling prices. 

General manager Karl told the Oxford Mail that the site is closing due to a number of reasons:

“Overheads are the main issue and the changing shopping habits – we don’t see the same amount of customers we used to,” he said. This is in stark contrast to the company’s website, which said in the past that “the centre had been a massive success since the re-development in 2007 with over 1 million customers visiting the site in the first 6 months.”

“We use a lot of water to keep the fish healthy, and our electricity bill is very high.

“We’re a very energy-heavy industry with tropical fish and heating tanks. Electricity has gone up massively in the last three/four years for business use. There is no cap on business use electricity like there is on home use.”

“Rent is quite high – our site is one of the ones with the highest overheads.”

Karl, who has worked at World of Water in Bicester since 2001, said the site has gone through “several changes” and was closed for nearly a year due to a fire in 2016.

He added: “We’re exceptionally thankful for everyone’s custom over the years, we’ve got to know some customers on a regular basis very well, thank you for people’s custom over the years and we’re very sorry that we are closing.”

News credit Oxford Mail