The Doncaster branch of nationwide footwear retailer Shoe Zone is at risk – as the firm announced it would be closing some of its branches, blaming the shutdowns on the Labour budget.

Low cost footwear retailer Shoe Zone, which has a branch in St Sepulchre Gate in Doncaster city centre, has blamed extra costs resulting from changes to wages and National Insurance contributions announced by Chancellor Rachel Reeves in October’s budget as well as weakening consumer confidence for its decision to close stores.

Shoe Zone said it had experienced “very challenging trading conditions” between the start of October and the middle of December because of lower consumer confidence and unseasonal weather, which had led to falling sales and decreasing profit.

The group, which has 297 stores and about 2,250 employees in the UK, added that consumer confidence had weakened further after the budget on 30 October and had made a number of its shops “unviable”.

Doncaster's Shoe Zone store is one of 300 at risk across the UK.

placeholder image — Doncaster's Shoe Zone store is one of 300 at risk across the UK.

The company did not state how many stores would close. The retailer had 309 stores at the end of March.

It said that planned increases to employers’ NICs and the national living wage would cause it to “incur significant additional costs”.

In her budget, the chancellor announced an increase in the rate of employer national insurance from 13.8% to 15% from April next year. In addition, the threshold at which employers start paying the tax on each employee’s salary was lowered to £5,000 from £9,100.

The measures, expected to ultimately raise £25bn a year, have drawn criticism from a string of large businesses, particularly retailers and hospitality companies, who say they will be forced to cut jobs and raise prices.

The governor of the Bank of England, Andrew Bailey, has described businesses’ reaction to the NICs increase as the “biggest issue” facing the UK’s economy after the budget, at a time of rising economic uncertainty in the UK and globally.

Shoe Zone – which sells almost 14m pairs of shoes a year, at an average retail price of £13.30 – said the combination of higher costs and falling sales would have a “significant impact on our full-year figures”.

Shoe Zone now expects to make an adjusted pre-tax profit of about £5m in the year to 27 September, down from previous estimates of £10m.