Rapid Hardware shuts its doors

THE shutters abruptly came down on Rapid Hardware today as receivers suspended trading in the ailing DIY business.

Administrators were called in on Tuesday just gone. Naturally, perhaps, they blamed last summer's temporary closure of Central Station for the downturn in its fortunes, saying the store would stay open while new investors were sought. Was an unfortunate blip implied?

One giant shopping crater was created
in one part of town to solve the sudden
problem of a hole in another

Today, however, there was a change of heart and with “immediate effect” the tills were closed.

“Final closure of the store cannot be ruled out,” reads an ominous statement from receivers Duff and Phelps.

City centre footfall was indeed down last summer when Central closed for a multi-million pound refurb - five per cent, according to figures by Liverpool BID. It left many small retailers in crisis.

The march and march of Rapid Hardware in Renshaw Street before 2009

Independents like Matta's and News from Nowhere on Bold Street, told Liverpool Confidential at the time of their worries and how they had filed applications for rates relief to the council to offset the drop in revenue.

A giant in comparison, the loss of Rapid has been lamented on every discussion board and phone-in this week. But most people pointed to a far simpler nail, so to speak, in the coffin of the DIY business which opened in 1971.

Rapid moved its locks, its stocks and its workers from Renshaw Street - a place where you could park -  to the George Henry Lee building, on Basnett Street, a place where you could not. In doing so, many believe, the Doherty family's loss became B&Q's gain.

Cars and vans are what you take paint, shelving and workbenches home in, not trains. As HMV and Jessops have also found to their cost, most of the rest of the stuff Rapid stocks, you can buy in supermarkets or online. Rapid's USP was its warren of caves snaking ever further up the street like an advancing army in full drill-bit tungsten jacket.

Nobody much seemed to think the 2009 move was a good idea.

One giant shopping crater was created in one part of town to solve the sudden problem of a hole in another: The much-loved George Henry Lee business had moved into the brand spanking new John Lewis building in Liverpool ONE. There too, you can buy most of those those Rapid items – and, ironically, cart them home via its purpose-built, eponymous, multi-storey car park.

This new mess once again leaves the question of what is going to happen to whole streets of the city centre now laid waste. There is some cosmetic hope for Renshaw Street, with the Central Village plan, however developers may not have counted on the Occupy Liverpool people taking over and squatting the old Rapid premises this week, with, they claim, a full set of keys.

Even in black and white, Renshaw Street, in this picture, has more sunshine to it than it does today

However, Lime Street, with its rotting picture palaces, can hardly be top of the council's money-spending agenda.

Two years ago, one fairly senior city official, who will certainly not wish to be named, told Confidential if they had their way they would flatten the lot and put some grass there.

What, Lewis's included? Yes, Lewis's included.