Trading from 10 North West outlets, including at Bold Street in Liverpool,Wilkinson Cameras was facing ‘dire consequences’ due to the coronavirus lockdown. Tony McDonough reports

Camera retailer Wilkinson Cameras has secured a £200,000 lifeline that will help its business to survive the coronavirus lockdown.

Wilkinson Cameras trades from 10 North West outlets including at Bold Street in Liverpool, Burnley, Bury, Carlisle, Chester, Kendal, Lancaster, Preston, Southport and Warrington. It employs almost 50 people.

Like many other non-essential retailers, the business was forced to close its stores in arch when the Government implemented a lockdown across the UK in an attempt to slow the spread of COVID-19 and ease the pressure on the NHS.

Though necessary, the move looked to have dire consequences Wilkinson’s income streams, despite still being able to trade online. However, now the business has secured £200,000 from Barclays via the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS) which will protect its cashflow until Government support schemes kick in.

David Parkinson, managing director of Wilkinson Cameras, said: “Like-for-like sales in April were at 50% year on year thanks to our online sales and the hard work of our customer service team, but the lockdown was clearly going to have a huge impact on our business, so we asked Barclays for support.

“A big thank you to our relationship manager, Leigh, who acted extremely quickly and efficiently with support and swift processing of our CBILS application. The rapid response from both Barclays and Government will hopefully secure our position.”

Leigh Tregonning, Barclays relationship manager, added: “David and the team have put in a huge amount of work to build a strong and successful business by employing highly trained and knowledgeable staff who can offer a point of difference to all the online competition.

“Therefore, when coronavirus impacted them and they were forced to close all their stores, we moved quickly to discuss how Barclays could help. We spent time looking at their financial forecasts and put together an application that would get them through this tough period.”