A LONG-ESTABLISHED Manchester Road business is eyeing up a move to the town centre.

As reported by the Guardian last week, Topfloors Ltd has submitted plans with Cheshire West and Chester Council to transform its site into six new apartments.

But the tile retailer, which was established in 1972, has confirmed it is not looking to close down.

Instead, it hopes to move to a more suitable and prominent premises in town, should its proposal be given the green light by CWAC.

Co-owner Sue Billows said: "When we started more than 45 years ago we would have massive deliveries brought in from Spain and Italy, and we needed warehousing.

"Now, customers walk in through the door, they place an order and it can be delivered the next day by the suppliers.

"We have been carrying with about 50 per cent of the building empty, so we sat down and thought about it and felt it would make sense to downsize and move somewhere more central in Northwich."

Sue says the pandemic has given the Topfloors team time to rethink the business, leading to the decision to redevelop the site ahead of a possible move.

With the town plunged into Tier 4 last week, and tougher national restrictions announced on Monday night, the showroom is now closed once again due to Covid.

"It is one of those things," said Sue.

"The worst part is we have got customers that were waiting for jobs to be done.

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"We had told customers if they did not want us to carry on the work we would rearrange it, or if they wanted us to work then to let our people come and social distance, and it had been working."

The planning scheme involves part-demolition and conversion of the existing Topfloors building into one one-bedroom flat, four two-bedroom flats and one three-bedroom flat for the open market.

To view the plans, search for '20/04578/FUL' on CWAC's planning website.