Baby and young childrenswear shop Cradle Care has secured a temporary base to trade from following a flood.
It reopened on Friday 15th April at a former insurance office at 127 West Blackhall Street, Greenock just along from its usual premises.
One of Greenock's longest-established town centre shops, Cradle Care is facing a battle to keep its doors open after thousands of pounds of stock was destroyed.
The business had been closed since a burst boiler in a flat upstairs from its normal premises sent a deluge of water into its ground floor premises overnight.
There were three feet of water in the basement after a passer-by alerted the owners.
The staff has since been working round the clock to rescue stock and move to temporary premises along the road, thanks to the support of the owners and Bowman Rebecchi.
Owners Chris and Sandra Jewell have run the business in West Blackhall Street for nearly 30 years and have just faced the most challenging two years in business.
Now it looks like it could take six months to get their premises fit for purpose again.
Mr Jewell said: "Our income has been reduced to zero since this happened and it has come on the back of Covid when we were forced to close twice for a few months at a time.
"We have lost such a lot of stock, we are still working through what is damaged and in the kind of business we are in, you cannot just replace it.
"We order six months in advance from manufacturers.
"This is our biggest season of the year with Easter, christenings and we have First Communion dresses.
"Now the Covid restrictions have ended people are having christenings again, so there is a demand
"Water damage and damp are just about the worst thing that can happen to clothes, but we are managing to do what we can."
Cradle Care employs four people and they are running humidifiers round the clock to dry out the premises following the flood in late March.
Mr Jewell added: "One of the customers got in touch with us to say there was water coming out the front door.
"The burst boiler above had been running all night - if you can imagine turning all your taps on full all night, that was the volume of water coming down.
"Luckily we are insured although that is not going to help us replace the stock for our customers.
"But we will recover, our customers have been so supportive. We have been in West Blackhall Street for a very long time."
Cradle Care is one of the few businesses in the street to have weathered the storm in the downturn of the high street in recent years, along with other long-standing retailers like Smiths.
Chris said: "This comes after the most difficult time we have endured, but during Covid, we built up a robust online service with orders across the UK, so that should help us."
This article appeared in the Greenock Telegraph.
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