CONSTRUCTION has begun to convert part of the former HMV in Oxford into a new store.

The Cornmarket Street store closed in June last year (2014) after serving music fans in the city since the late 1980s.

In recent months contractors have been working at the site and a planning application has been submitted to the city council for work to alter the shopfront.

After HMV closed it left Truck store on Cowley Road as the city’s main seller of CDs and vinyl records.

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Britel Fund Trustees Ltd c/o Hermes Investment Management applied to the city council earlier this year to alter half of the former HMV shopfront, while the other half is still being advertised.

No one from the agents working on behalf of Britel was available for comment and a spokeswoman for Bristol-based Bygott Structural Steel Erectors said: “We haven’t been told yet who’s going to go in there.”

Traders’ spokesman Graham Jones of ROX – Backing Oxford Businesses – said: “It has been a long while since HMV closed so it is encouraging that work is now taking place.

“It’s a large premises so it makes sense to split it into two – we have not yet been told who will occupy the units.

“Any new shop in the middle of Oxford will be a boost and it is time the units were filled.

“Until the new Westgate Centre opens, Cornmarket is one of the main shopping streets and we don’t want any gaps.”