LIVERPOOL city centre’s smaller shop owners are being urged to pull together so they can compete with the giant Liverpool One retail development.

Traders fear that some parts of town, including Bold Street, renowned for its range of small and trendy shops, will suffer a significant loss of trade once Grosvenor’s £1bn Liverpool One development opens its doors for business this spring.

Dick Mawdsley, joint owner of Utility, fears his two furniture stores in Bold Street could lose up to 20% of their turnover once the new retail scheme opens.

He is calling for traders to join forces and fight back by promoting the street and making it an even more attractive place for shoppers to visit.

He said: “What we need in this area is for us all to get together and agree a plan. If we all sing with one voice we have more power.

“Some of us have already got together and talked about this.

“There are some cool shops here. If we can brand ourselves as

Liverpool’s independent, cool quarter, then it could benefit us all.”

Mr Mawdsley said similar schemes in London, including in Marylebone High Street and Connaught Village, showed that clusters of independent shops could market themselves successfully as shopping destinations.

Some stores at the bottom end of Bold Street, including Karen Millen, are set to relocate to Liverpool One, and Mr Mawdsley is concerned their old premises will prove difficult to fill and leave a cluster of empty shops at the start of the street.

Mr Mawdsley said he hoped that Bold Street’s traders would start their own group rather than join the existing Liverpool BID, describing the body set up to represent city centre shops as a “rates grabbing exercise.”

Chris Lee, owner of Bold Street store Microzine, said: “Bold Street is, from a retail point of view, the lifeblood of Liverpool. If you look at the Metquarter, they’ve got one landlord and think of themselves as one unit. Grosvenor will be the same.

“We need to have a united point of view and a shared voice.”

Lewis’s owner David Thompson is also keen to see local independent retailers form their own association.

Liverpool BID chief executive Rita Waters said she planned to meet Bold Street retailers within weeks to discuss extending the district’s scope.

She said the project could include enhanced street cleaning or an extension of the existing dedicated CCTV response team.

“I would be delighted to embrace Bold Street,” she said.

“But if they say no, we are becoming an independent quarter and don’t want to have to pay a levy to fund the BID, then we won’t force it on them.

“The benefits the city centre has seen through the BID have been phenomenal – such as in the public realm, reduction in crime and a radio alert scheme.”

alistairhoughton@dailypost.co.uk