EIGHT years have passed since shoppers headed out to hunt down a bargain on the final day before BHS closed its Taunton store.

The shop in North Street shut for the last time on Sunday, July 31, 2016, following the collapse of the High Street chain which entered administration in April of that year.

It was one of several BHS stores that closed nationwide over that weekend, and one of the total 164 BHS closures that cost more than 11,000 people their jobs. All stores were closed by August 20 2016.

Workers moved in to clear unsold stock and remove the fixtures and fittings from the huge building and passers by were heard speculating as to which business would move into the premises.

The space was filled with Poundworld Plus from September 2017 to July 2018. In November 2018 the vacant building was again filled by its current occupant, Bargain Buys, which recently came under new ownership.

Leo Rodriguez, who was searching for a wedding anniversary present for her husband on that final day of BHS in 2016, said: "I thought I'd be able to snap up a good bargain, but I was very disappointed.

"They were advertising 30 per cent and 50 per cent off, but the items on sale still seemed pretty expensive.

"Lots of the goods were in boxes that had been torn open, while some of them were damaged."

Duff & Phelps closed down 20 stores in the week before the Taunton store's closing, affecting 580 staff, and shut a further 30 shops in the same wave as the Taunton store, affecting another 700 employees.

Duff & Phelps failed to find a buyer for the business as a going concern and then attempted to sell the stores off piecemeal.

Retail billionaire Sir Philip Green was branded the "unacceptable face of capitalism" as a parliamentary inquiry found he systematically extracted huge sums from the collapsed store group while leaving its pension fund in deficit.

The company left a pension deficit of around £571 million.  In 2016, MPs passed a non-binding motion to strip the businessman of his knighthood, although after he agreed to hand over £363 million for the pensioners, the calls died down.