Mark Brittain Warehouse The Mark Brittain Warehouse was a distribution centre owned by mail order firm Mark Brittain which operated in Coronation Street from 1971 to 1975 . The warehouse was built in tandem with a new Community Centre on the site of the maisonettes , which were demolished by the council when an electrical fault which claimed the life of Valerie Barlow led to a devastating fire exposing structural faults and leaving no choice but to condemn the building . Knowing that a warehouse opening in Coronation Street would be unpopular with the residents , councillors Alf Roberts and Len Fairclough tried to keep the matter quiet , but builder Fred Chapman let the cat out of the bag in the Rovers Return . Concerned residents campaigned against the warehouse , with Annie Walker organising a petition . Emily Nugent and Lucille Hewitt went one step further with a sit - in on the building site , which gained support from the women but was ignored by the men as Len kept Alan Howard and Stan Ogden supplied with drinks in the Rovers . Fred Chapman broke the stalemate by calling a digger forward , which knocked Lucille over and poured its contents over her feet . A few days later , the company ' s smooth - talking PR manager , Geoffrey Hunter , visited the Street to try and win the residents over by pointing out how the warehouse would benefit them . He was persuasive enough to get the residents to drop their protests . Construction of the new buildings was completed by May , and the firm spent the next few weeks recruiting staff . Edward Pollard , temporary personnel manager , hired Elsie Howard as checking supervisor , but fired her when Hilda Ogden informed him that Elsie was previously in court for stealing from a former employer , Miami Modes ( even though the case was dismissed ) , although his replacement , Dennis Maxwell , reinstated her , and by June , the warehouse was up and running . The day - to - day running of the warehouse fell to managers such as Dennis Maxwell and John Fitzpatrick but their superiors - company directors Sir Julius Berlin and Marcus Berlin - kept a close eye on the site and often dealt with site matters personally . In April 1974 , work on the main loading bay at the other side of the warehouse caused lorries to be diverted to Coronation Street to use the alternative loading bay , usually used as a staff entrance . The resulting lorry noise at unsocial hours and increased traffic meaning residents were unable to park outside their houses resulted in the residents deciding to take action , with Ken Barlow elected spokesperson . Meeting with Sir Julius and manager Lionel Portious , Ken criticised the firm ' s business practice and proposed that the company redeploy labour from their branch in a non - residential estate in the Midlands , which was also having alterations done . Ken ' s suggestion was successfully implemented , and Sir Julius was so impressed with Ken that he offered him a job with Mark Brittain as Northern Executive Administrative Assistant , with a car and £1 , 000 rise on his current salary . Ken ' s career move would prove to be an uphill struggle for the former teacher . His was a newly - created position in a well - established structure , and he had no clear role . When he joined , he found the staff pushing for a union , and was instructed by Edward Pollard to silence them without making concessions - a difficult position for Ken , who was in fact sympathetic to the staff in labour issues . With the girls threatening to strike , Ken asked shop steward Peggy Barton not to push the unionisation and debated with her at a meeting between staff and management . A deal was struck for the girls to get their union in exchange for Peggy ' s resignation , a resolution which satisfied all parties , with Peggy bagging a union job . Three months later , Ken and Peggy met up again and started seeing each other , discovering that they actually had a lot in common . At the same time , warehouse management was battling a militant Ivy Tilsley when the firm decided to lower the staff retirement age to sixty . Ivy decided to call in the union , but finding no help from Peggy , accused her of siding with her boyfriend . Fearing the sack for having divided loyalties , Peggy dropped Ken and they parted amicably , but Pollard had learned about their relationship and tried to get Ken fired by reporting the matter to Marcus Berlin . However , when Ken solved the retirement age issue with his suggestion that women over sixty be kept on call to fill in on emergencies , he gained favour with the Berlins , and Pollard ' s attempt to shop his colleague resulted in his superiors asking for " his " resignation . In October , storeman Tony Bolton and his friend Paul Meggitt used Tony ' s dad Fred ' s key to steal jackets from the warehouse and store them at the Canal Garage . Fred suspected Paul of the theft , but avoided reporting him to the police when Paul warned him that Tony was involved . When Billy Walker was caught with the jackets by the police , Ken Barlow convinced Fred to shop his own son and set the record straight . In 1975 , the packing department was put on a three - day week , and Mark Brittain announced that 20 % of the staff would have to go . As one of the unlucky few , Ken left the cutthroat world of business behind , with no regrets . The warehouse ' s problems continued that September , when three youths , Kevin and Bernie Marsh and Chris Ashton broke into the warehouse storeroom and spent the night sleeping on blankets , hiding from their father Douglas who was after them for smashing up Ken Barlow ' s house . The next morning , the youths fled , leaving a cigarette smouldering on an armchair . The cigarette caused an inferno that filled the room , and when checker Edna Gee opened the door to have a cigarette break , she was engulfed in a fireball . The alarm was raised and the Street was evacuated as tanks of gas in the factory could have potentially exploded . When the blaze was finally put out , there was nothing left of the factory but its gutted shell . Edna and an unidentified person were the only fatalities of the blaze . Mark Brittain chose not to rebuild and its 200 staff lost their jobs overnight . A year later , the warehouse roared into action again as Londoner Mike Baldwin opened his second denim factory on the restored premises .