DEBENHAMS has confirmed the Barrow store is ‘fully open’ after bosses were forced to close the top floor after the ceiling collapsed.

Shoppers were disappointed to find the first floor of Debenhams in Portland Walk closed on Thursday after work being conducted on the multi-story car park had left holes in the roof.

It is understood that this combined with heavy rain on Wednesday caused the ceiling to fall through and the top floor was flooded with some stock being damaged.

While it was originally believed it would take 48 hours for the electrics to dry out, a Debenhams spokesman has now confirmed both floors of the shop reopen yesterday and were operating as normal.

He said: “The store has now fully reopened and we apologise for any inconvenience caused to customers.”

Cllr Ann Thomson, leader of Barrow Council praised both the contractors and the Debenhams maintenance team for having the issue resolved so quickly.

She said: “It was good to see the top floor reopened at 11am.

“The contractors did well to get the issue sorted and the maintenance team at Debenhams did a marvellous job drying out the electrics.”

Cllr Thomson said she hoped the issue would not reoccur.

She said: “The plan was to pull up some of the asphalt and lay concrete, but the concrete was delayed by the heavy rain.

“But the town hall, contractors and Debenhams have worked well to resolve the issue.

“Hopefully it won’t happen again as it isn’t fair on the Debenhams staff and shoppers."