Former employees of a Coventry store that was sold in April have been urged to apply for positions at the company that purchased it.

The 103 members of staff at Co-operative Retail Services Homeworld store in Walsgrave were left out of work after the development was sold off.

However, the buyer Kingfisher Plc has announced that it is to open England’s first ‘Big W’ store on the site, creating over 200 new jobs.

It will be only the second such store in existence - there is currently one in Edinburgh which opened in June as a pilot to gauge the success of the idea.

Company spokesman Mike McGann believes the store, which is an amalgamation of many of the brands under the Kingfisher umbrella such as Superdrug, B&Q, Comet and Woolworths, will be a great success in Coventry.

He said:

"The pilot in Edinburgh is hugely popular and when I say that it is three times the size of the biggest Woolworths then people begin to understand the scale of it.

"It will not sell food, but apart from that people can buy everything there, from electrical hardware and software to a massive selection of confectionery.

"There will also be a Burger King within the store, which is like a complex really, so it is a case of everything under one roof."

And McGann revealed that the company had already taken on several members of staff who had previously worked in the building for Homeworld.

He said:

"Anyone who had worked for Homeworld was invited to apply for positions and that is still very much the case.

"All they need do is go into their local job centre and ask about ‘Big W’ because there are still positions available.

"The store will open on 29 October as all that there is to do is the internal fitting because the building itself is perfect for our requirements."