BOSSES at Accrington’s main shopping centre have said they are close to filling all shopping units after a difficult few years.

At the height of problems with store closures, difficulties finding tenants saw as many as 12 empty units at Accrignton Arndale Centre.

However bosses at the centre said they are now looking at a much brighter picture, with upcoming leases expected to leave just two.

The Arndale Centre first started experiencing difficulties in 2009 with closures of household names such as Woolworths and children’s wear store Adams.

Other closures followed thick and fast, including Price Less Shoes, Stationery Box, Hampsons, Cryers Sound and Vision, Mark One, Ethel Austin and the Officers Club.

Since then, new shop openings have gradually brought life back to the shopping centre, such as Graingers Games, the Card Factory, Lancashire Tea, Textiles Direct and Store Twenty One.

The centre’s Ethel Austin shop has also reopened and it has been announced cafe giant Costa Coffee will take up the former Officers Club site at the centre’s Broadway entrance.

Just two empty units remain, the former Cookies coffee shop and the former Mark One.

Two others currently empty should soon be filled.

An empty unit next to Timpsons, under Timpsons’ control, will soon be filled by a temporary lease holder with a view to long-term leasing.However the details of this new store have not yet been revealed.

A third currently empty unit has been earmarked for charity Shopmobility.

A spokesman for the owner’s Protego said: “It is definitely a much brighter picture than it has been in the past few years.

“Though one of the leases is temporary, it could become long term and temporary leases have been effective in the past.

“We have been doing everything we can to fill empty units and it is starting to pay off.”

The borough’s not-for-profit business advisors, Hyndburn Enterprise Trust said the news was pleasing.

Executive director Aileen Evans said: “This news is so welcome and is exactly what is needed to boost town centre trade and Accrington as a whole.”