BULLDOZED

A glazier has been trading on the site of Cohens Glass on the corner of Widnes Road and Gerrard Street for more than 80 years.

"We are absolutely gutted," said Geoff Gwilliam, who took over the business with his brother Robert after their dad, Joe, died. He inherited the shop 50 years ago.

"It has come as a total shock.

"We thought we were safe when we saw all the new shop fronts being put in along here. It's hard enough to run a business but now they're taking the building away from us."

Geoff fears he may not be able to find another suitable location in the town centre.

"We're in a prime spot here, with parking and access for our delivery vehicles at the back. We don't want to move out of the town, we need a shop front.

"As they are pedestrianising the rest of the town centre, there's nowhere we could go as good as this."

Another problem they face, he said, is finding a new home for their tenants who rent the premises above their shop.

"We are not happy but a few shopkeepers are not going to be able to go against a million pound project like this. It looks inevitable to us that they are going to go ahead with it."

Staff at Ratcliffe's bakery on the other end of the block were too shocked to talk about the demolition.

Ironically, many businesses in this block are in the middle of a major refurbishment programme, having spent thousands of pounds giving their shops a new facelift.

Prontaprint, the Acorn Gallery and Cut'n'Curl hairdressers are having new mahogany-look window fronts fitted.

Traders have also spent a lot of money on improvements inside their premises to improve facilities for customers.

A European grant was awarded to help towards the cost of the renovation.

A landlord who owns a block on the opposite side of Widnes Road, where Rona's florist is situated, failed to get the grant - yet this row of shops is not being bulldozed.

Converted for the new archive on 13 March 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.