THE owners of a family-run business have said they felt "the world crashing down on them" after discovering they had lost thousands of pounds worth of supplies in a fire.

Cindy Bennett, who runs glazing and glass cutting business Andy Glass alongside her husband, Gary, were left heartbroken after an industrial shed which they had been using to store materials went up in flames.

The couple are just weeks away from moving their business, currently located on St Barnabas Road in Middlesbrough, to a new location, but their plans could be dealt a set back due to the cost of replacing the damaged goods.

Speaking to The Northern Echo, Mrs Bennett said she received a message about the fire at around 4.45pm on Saturday evening.

The couple then raced across to see the damage, and as they did, they could see thick black smoke filling the Middlesbrough skyline as they got closer to the site.

"We have lost so much stuff. We used the building to store things and there must be thousands of pounds worth of damage.

"We had just had a delivery of some new greenhouse glass a few weeks ago, and that cost a few thousand alone.

"There was some glass cleaner and loads of other stuff that we stored in there."

The business has been in operation for almost 30 years and has been run by its current owners for the last four years.

"We are moving to a new premises in eight weeks time and now this has been demolished. It couldn’t have been worse timing.

"The area is still taped off so we don’t know when we are going to be able to open again. There is some damage to our main building as well.

"We have passed our CCTV footage over to the police to see if we can find some answers to what has happened.

"We don’t know what the future holds now, we are still trying to come to terms with it."

Almost 100 residents of St Barnabas Road were left without power for hours after the large fire.

Numerous fire engines visited the scene to battle the blaze, which took seven hours to put out.

A police cordon remained in place throughout Sunday as an investigation into the cause of the fire continues.

A spokesperson for Cleveland Police said: "Officers assisted Cleveland Fire Brigade with a fire on St Barnabas Road at the junctions with Addison Road and Lewis Road in Middlesbrough.

"No one is believed to be injured at this time.

"As a result of the fire on Barnabas Road, Northern Powergrid confirmed that they had 97 properties affected in the TS5 area."