A FAMILY owned business that has been running in York for decades is eyeing an extension on the edge of the city centre.

Barnitts has been in its Colliergate store since 1896, and is a well-known fixture on York’s retail scene, but now planning documents show the company is drawing up proposals for a new showroom, warehouse and click and collect centre in James Street.

Managing director Paul Thompson said they were not moving out of Colliergate, but expanding to offer a more modern and convenient way of shopping for people who want to click and collect, rather than head into town.

The James Street site is currently home to their warehouse, and they already have planning permission for more storage and a small showroom but have now changed their plans and want more retail space and less storage.

Mr Thompson said: “We are staying in Colliergate, this is an expansion for the purposes of click and collect, and for a furniture and lighting showroom with car parking.

“We are not closing down in York city centre - far from it. We have changed over the last century, and we have to modernise and improve.”

The plans would see the buildings converted into a 7,000 sq ft home and garden shop with office and storage space on site as well.

The new site will create eight new full time jobs, the planning documents show, and have room for 19 customer parking spaces, and would also mean fewer large lorries heading into the city centre, Mr Thompson added, as deliveries would be made to the edge of town site before goods were transferred into Colliergate on Barnitts own smaller vehicles.

The plans now depend on City of York Council granting planning permission. If approved it will be around 18 to 24 months before the new site can open, as cataloguing Barnitts’ stock and setting up the online facilities for Click and Collect is carried out.

Last summer, Barnitts closed their Acomb store, saying that with the 25-year lease renewal due, the site was no longer viable.

At the time Mr Thompson said: “The dynamics have changed and the types of shops down there are not attracting the footfall.

"Twenty-five years ago Acomb was very busy. The way people shop has changed, people get their goods delivered, we have to change with it.”