ONE of Greenock's longest-established town centre shops is facing a battle to keep its doors open after thousands of pounds of stock was destroyed by a huge flood.

Baby and children's wear store Cradle Care has been closed since a burst boiler in a flat upstairs sent a deluge of water into its ground floor premises overnight.

There was three feet of water in the basement after a passer-by alerted the owners.

Saff have been working round the clock to rescue stock and move to a temporary premises along the road.

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 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 is just about the worst thing than can happen to clothes, but we are managing to do what we can."

Cradle Care employs four people and has just moved into a temporary premises along the road street until the store is fixed.

They are running humidifiers round the clock to dry out the premises following the flood in late-March.

Mr Jewell added: "One of 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."