By HELEN COMPSONP

Last updated at 11:28, Friday, 21 May 2010

A POTENTIAL last-minute saviour has expressed an interest in taking over the doomed Robb’s department store in Hexham.

National department store chain Beales has lodged formal notice of interest in the store with administrators MCR.

Representatives of Beales were looking round the property yesterday.

And while it is early days to talk of any deal, the interest alone has given the 120 people who work at the store at least a glimmer of hope.

Started in Bournemouth in 1881, Beales adopted an expansion programme in the 1960s, now has 11 stores spread across Bedford, Southport, Bolton, Winchester, Kendal, Yeovil, Worthing, Tonbridge and Horsham.

Most trade under the Beales name, but the group also includes Whitakers Department Store in Bolton, Broadbent & Boothroyds in Southport, and Denners in Yeovil, in Somerset.

It focuses on specific merchandise categories, principally womenswear, mens-wear, gifts, cosmetics and light homewares.

As well as its main stores Beales operates a successful online shopping service.

The interest by Beales has come as the administrators have called on owners of the Robb’s building the Buccleuch Group, and Northumberland County Counci, to waive rent and rents for the next 10 weeks.

They feel the business would be more attractive if it was marketed as a going concern.

The rates alone for the building are thought to be around £100,000 a year.

A spokesman for the administrators said: “MCR hasn’t heard back from either party yet, but MCR is asking them to waive the rent and rates to give it longer to sell the store.

“The store was due to close within four weeks, but the closure could be put back to 10 weeks if agreement is reached.”

Now in the throes of a fully-fledged closing down sale, the clock actually started ticking for the store a week ago when the first deadline set for finding a buyer passed in silence.

Northumberland County Council’s executive director of place, Richard Robson, said the council would do what it could to help Robb’s.

“We are in discussions with both the administrators and the property owners, Buccleuch Group, to develop a package of support for both rental and rate relief in order to assist the store in continuing to trade,” he said.

“We hope this will give the best possible chance of securing a new operator and are making every effort to ensure this important retail facility has a positive future.

“The council is fully committed to working with all parties, and particularly with the property owners on both long and short term solutions that will benefit the retail offer of Hexham.”

However, Buccleuch Group’s commercial property developer Nick Waugh declined to comment, simply saying he was awaiting further information from the administrators.

Hexham’s MP Guy Opperman said any initiative that would help in the search for a new buyer for Robb’s should be encouraged.

“If the council can alleviate the burden on a short term basis, it will unquestionably make the whole process easier,” he said.

Chairman of Hexham Community Partnership Roy Dallison said he didn’t think the short term nature of the amnesty would make a great deal of difference to Robb’s fortunes.

He said: “That sort of arrangement is fine if the administrators actually have offers of interest on the table – then the 10 week period could be significant.

“But if no interest has been expressed at this stage, 10 weeks isn’t much and it isn’t going to make a great deal of difference in the overall scale of things.”

He felt the inevitable would simply be delayed, and it was time decisive action was taken to end the instability and poor management of Robb’s.

“I think the whole escapade with Vergo Retail clearly hasn’t worked and it won’t work,” he said.

“If there are no offers on the table, they might as well wind it up and let Buccleuch Group actually decide on an alternative that offers a better future both for itself and the town.

“A radical reworking of the whole situation is the best way forward.”

Coun. Derek Kennedy, a member of Northumberland County Council’s LibDem minority leadership, said if a buyer wasn’t found for Robb’s, then the council’s ‘plan B’ would be to help create the right conditions in which the building could, indeed, be redeveloped.

This is the second time in three years that Robb’s owner David Thompson has taken his company into administration. Closing-down sales have already begun at nine of his department stores regarded as being in a particularly parlous state.

First published at 09:48, Friday, 21 May 2010
Published by http://www.hexhamcourant.co.uk