Footwear group Barratts Priceless has restructured its management team and appointed John Hood, former managing director of footwear retailer Brantano Footwear, to the new role of brand director at Barratts.

Hood, previously business director at Kuwait-based franchise operator MH Alshaya, will join the retailer on Monday. He will oversee buying, merchandising, marketing and retail operations and replaces David Lockyer, who has been acting managing director for the past 18 months. Lockyer will stay on the board as non-executive director.

Barratts Priceless chairman Howard Stanton is set to retire at the end of December and will be replaced by Stylo non-executive director Terry Bond. The business has also appointed Deliotte strategic adviser Richard Hyman as non-executive director. Hyman was chairman of research firm Verdict Research for 24 years until 2008.

Jonathan Clamp has been promoted to the new role of group marketing director for Barratts Priceless. He has been sales and marketing director since joining in May.

Lockyer said the new team would help to “deliver the continuing process we started with when we came out of administration. We want to continue the process of sustaining a profitable business.”

He said Barratts plans to roll out a “small number” of refits to existing stores next year. It is set to open a new store in Newcastle’s Eldon Square today.

Separately, the Barratts website enjoyed a record week last week, despite the website crashing for several hours on Thursday due to “technical issues”.

Stylo, the footwear group that owned Barratts and Priceless, collapsed into administration in January 2009. A month later the Ziff family rescued 160 Barratts and Priceless stores from administrators.