A PROMINENT Accrington store will close its doors after 20 years with bosses blaming the effects of the recession on the town centre.

Blackburn Road furniture shop Davies of Accrington said trade was so bad it didn’t even sell a single piece of furniture in its closing down sale.

Now bosses are looking to move to another town, possibly Blackburn.

The store has slowly downsized over the years. It once extended into next door’s property, now the Calder pub, and into a third property on the corner which is currently a bedding store.

Owner Gary Davies, 48, who runs the shop with his wife Julie, 50, said the recession started to affect them two years ago when the usual weekly takings of £5,000 dropped to £3,000.

More recently they have seen that fall even further to an average of just £1,000.

Last week they took an all time low of £400, which they said did not cover the £1,000 rents and rates.

Gary said that as they need to take in £2,000 to make any money, they have no option but to close.

He said: “People are just hard up. The pubs are doing okay, but nobody is buying anything.

“Even when we had the closing down sale signs in the window, people were coming in asking how long it would go on for, because they hadn’t any money this week.

"All we got was people asking us to put it off for a bit.

“That shows you the effect the recession has had.

"We’ve had lots of neighbours close down and others are considering it.”

Mr Davies said they would be closing the shop within the next three months and were looking for another town to relocate to.

He said “We’ve been here a long time and wanted to stay. It would have been good to get some rates relief from the council but they say applying for that could take months.

"It is probably best that we are going, in the meantime we are getting into debt.”

Leader of Hyndburn Council Coun Miles Parkinson said they were looking at measures to boost Blackburn Road.

He said: “We plan to review the traffic and parking situation to encourage more people to that part of town.

"At the moment the town hall area is neither pedestrianised nor open to traffic which is not doing traders any favours.”