Furniture, homeware, fashion and garden retailer Downtown, formerly Oldrids, has reported another growth in sales.

According to its latest filed accounts for the year ended 28 January 2023, total sales rose 8% to £28.1m from £26m in 2022, further adding to its growth of 31.9% from £19.7m in 2021.

Pre-tax losses resulted at £968,000, declining from its profit of £689,000 recorded the previous year. This was driven by a renegotiation of the sale price of the Strait Bargate property in Boston which created a write down of £1m. Excluding this, the company made a profit of £31,000.

Stated within its report, the company, which operates from two stores in Grantham and Boston as well as a garden centre, said that the presented a further set of headwinds for the business, including the cost-of-living crisis, inflation and energy costs increases.

“The management team have implemented a number of initiatives to reduce the use of energy across the business. There has also been a focus on maintaining margins whilst remaining competitive as supplier costs have increased throughout the period.

“The online business has experienced challenging trading compared to prior years which reflects customers returning to physical stores. We have continued to refine our online operation which has included moving to a new platform and a change of domain name to downtownstores.co.uk.

“The board has continued to progress the plans for the redevelopment and regeneration of our Grantham site, including the proposed construction of Downtown Grantham Designer Outlet. Planning consent was granted by in April 2022.”