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Ikea to open Brighton city centre store

Google Churchill Square shopping centre in BrightonGoogle
Ikea will open a 'city store', a smaller version of the firm's furniture warehouses

IKEA said it will open a store in Brighton city centre after the Swedish furniture giant purchased a shopping centre.

The Ingka Group, which owns Ikea, purchased Churchill Square Shopping Centre near Western Road for £145m.

It comes after the company axed plans for a store in Lancing, West Sussex, in 2021.

The city centre stores are a smaller version of the retailer's larger out-of-town furniture warehouses.

The new store will open on the former Debenhams site, but no timescale has been given.

In a statement, Peter Jelkeby, retail manager and sustainability officer for IKEA UK, said: "Sussex has long been an area of interest to us, and we really look forward to bringing IKEA closer to where our customers live, work and socialise and becoming a part of this vibrant community."

The store will be the company's third city store in the UK and the only one outside of London.

Ikea Ikea's small-format shop, LondonIkea
Ikea says it will open a smaller "city store" version of it's furniture warehouse in Brighton, like this one in London

IKEA had previously said it wanted to open stores in a variety of formats as it sought to adapt to changing shopping habits.

The retailer added that it planned to add 4,000 staff to its global workforce over the next two years as part of a business revamp.

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