ONE of York’s biggest and best-known independent retailers is defying the recession with a major expansion scheme.

Barnitts hardware store in Colliergate, which was named The Press Shop of the Year in the summer, has bought the former Blacks premises next door.

Chairman and managing director Ian Thompson said today the move would create an extra 5,000 square feet of retail space on the ground and first floor to improve displays of products and provide shoppers with more space. He said it would also create an extra half-dozen jobs, taking the total staff at Barnitts towards 90.

Mr Thompson revealed that the business, which was established more than a century ago by George Barnitt, had been negotiating for months for the outdoor retailer’s building as its lease came to an end.

But the deal had been speeded up after Blacks announced last month that the outlet was one of 89 to close across the country as part of a restructuring project.

“It was too good an opportunity to miss,” he said.

He said the acquisition of the freehold – for an undisclosed sum – was a vote of confidence in both the future of the business and York.

“We have faith in the city centre,” Mr Thompson said. “If Barnitts was based in any other city, we would probably be looking to expand to out of town, but York is a unique city and we want to be in the heart of it.”

He said Blacks was in a Grade II listed building, with attractive staircases and architraves around the door, so the business would want to work with planners before pressing ahead with fitting it out in a sympathetic manner.

“We have no fixed timescale,” he said.

He said two or three holes would be punched through the walls to create doorways into the shop from the existing premises.

“One benefit of this is that we will be able to carry out most of the fitting out before we open up the entrances, so there will be minimal disruption to the rest of the shop.”

He said this was only the latest in a series of extensions of the store into adjacent buildings over the years, with the most recent expansion being into a former army drill hall. The purchase of Blacks would take the total size of the store to about 47,000 square feet.

• Barnitts was named Shop of the Year in August by The Press after a flood of plaudits from readers all over the region, who hailed it as a “real shop” and a “treasure trove”. The contest was organised as part of the newspaper’s York Means Business campaign, aimed at supporting and promoting local businesses through the global recession.