THE COUPLE who run one of Wantage's oldest independent shops have been left in limbo after their new building was condemned.

Peter and Jill Hall, who have run M&A Electricals since 2001, have been unable to operate the business since their shop in Mill Street was shut down in March.

After being told repairs would take at least until the New Year, they are now trying to work out if they could re-open the shop in their previous building.

The couple were forced to move to Mill Street from their original home in Market Place in August when the landlords – Mr P Newton and Mrs S Hart, according to council records – decided renovate the Grade II-listed building next to the King Alfred's Head pub and convert the upper storeys into eight flats.

Charity shop Oxfam, which rented space next door in the same building, was also forced out and no longer has a Wantage outlet.

Mr and Mrs Hall grudgingly accepted an offer to move M&A into a much smaller unit at 5-7 Mill Street owned by the same landlord.

But six months later, the landlord decided to start renovating that building, too, converting a single flat upstairs into two apartments.

The, after floors had been torn up, a structural engineer realised there were serious safety problems with the structure, and days later a buildings inspector condemned the whole thing, forcing Mr and Mrs Hall to shut up shop and send their staff home indefinitely.

Mr Hall said: "I had to say to my staff - 'you go home, you're not allowed in the building'.

The couple hoped they could re-open M&A temporarily in their old shop in Market Place.

The Herald understands that the original plan for Wantage lettings agency Douglas Gribben to move into the shop units at the Market Place building have now fallen through, leaving the units which M&A and Oxfam were forced to leave empty.

Mr Hall said the landlord was happy for M&A to move back to its original shop, but their plans have now been stymied by insurance problems:

Because the damage to the couple's new shop in Mill Street predates their building insurance for it, that policy has been rendered null and void, he said.

Mr and Mrs Hall and now involved in a wrangle with solicitors appointed by their insurance company to try and work out their cover if they were to move back into their old shop, but also who should cover the cost of moving the entire shop back up the road.

Mr Hall said: "I mostly just want to know, if the business goes under, who looks after me and my staff?

"But also, who moves us back up to the old shop? Because it was a beast of a job getting here in the first place.

"The landlords are in the same boat as us, they have to pay all this money to put the building right, and it's reached the stage where the only money we have is what the landlord has given us out of his own pocket on an interim basis, but none of the legal issues have been sorted out.

"It's one of those unfortunate circumstances that affects everyone."

That is not an overstatement: because of the scaffolding now surrounding M&A, plans to resurface the whole of Mill Street starting this week have now also been put on hold.

Oxfordshire County Council said it would inform people locally once a new date for the work had been agreed.