MORE than 80 staff of a Hampshire shop fitter have lost their jobs after the company became the latest victim of the slowdown on the high street.

Business at Eastleigh-based NRS Retail “went off a cliff”, forcing bosses to call in the administrators over £300,000 debts.

Despite running what administrators described as “a fantastic business” revamping shops, the loss of a large contract with supermarket giant Sainsbury’s helped push NRS over the edge.

Turnover, which was running high in 2007 at £6m, plummeted to just £1m last year.

Administrators were called last week and were hopeful of selling the business as a going concern, but have now made six full-time and 80 part-time staff redundant.

Owner Johnathan Goult said he realised after Christmas it was no longer possible to stay afloat.

“I’ve put 80 per cent of my waking hours into that business for the past eight years,” he said. “Taking that decision was like switching off the life support of a loved one, it was gut-wrenching.

“We had a perfect unblemished record and never missed a beat in terms of payment. It was a sensibly run business.”

But the credit crunch switched off bank funding, caused major retailers to cut back on spending, squeezed margins and caused customers to delay payments.

Administrator Julie Palmer said they were helpless in the face of the recession.

“They dealt with a number of accounts on a regular basis and, whereas two years ago, they had a turnover of £6m, last year they had a turnover of £1m,” she said.

“It is a fantastic business from a point of view of the model but its business literally went off a cliff. A lot of people are seeing a downturn of five, eight or ten per cent in sales but this is in the order of 80-85 per cent.

“There is absolutely nothing the director could have done about it.

“Our job now is to collect the debts and pay creditors what we can.”