DIY firm is sold – to another family
Last updated 11:35, Thursday, 01 May 2008
ONE of west Cumbria’s best known family businesses has been sold.
Chambers DIY, in James Street, Workington, has been snapped up by Longhorn Hardware, an arm of joinery, window fitting and entertainments firm Carlisle Glass.
Chambers, which was founded in 1881, will keep all its 11 staff. But the company will lose its historic name and be re-branded Longhorn Hardware in the summer.
The deal was completed this week after almost six months of negotiations between the two family-run Cumbrian companies. Carlisle Glass, at Crown Works in Crown Street, operates Longhorn Hardware shops in Carlisle, Kendal, Morecambe, Hawick and Darlington.
The company employs nearly 200 people and is one of the UK’s largest suppliers of trade tools, accessories and hardware products.
It also owns The Crown pub and The Roadhouse Hotel in Carlisle city centre.
Carlisle Glass director Catherine Hodgson said: “We have wanted to set up a permanent base in west Cumbria for a long time. We deliver to customers in west Cumbria five times a week from Carlisle. The next step was to get a shop out there – and this acquisition enables us to do that.
“Chambers are very well known in West Cumbria and it is great that the deal has gone through with their seal of approval.”
Chambers is run by brothers Ian and George Chambers, the fourth generation of the family to head the company.
The firm will continue to operate its kitchen, bedroom and furniture showroom on the James Street site as well as its joinery contracts operation at Clay Flatts Trading Estate.
Ian Chambers said: “We have known the people at Carlisle Glass for many years.
“We have worked together and we see the deal as mutually beneficial to both companies. In fact, we are chuffed to bits that it is them who are buying the business from us.
“We have excellent staff and a lot of them have been very loyal in staying with us for a long time, so we are delighted they are all staying on as part of the deal. That was one of the most important things to me.”
