NEW Year stay-at-homes could provide a millennium boom for Harveys Furnishings, the managing director of a furniture stores group predicted.

Rob Templeton said: "In my heart I believe people will not be going out for celebrations on New Years' Eve and January 1. With so few places open, Harveys' will see the benefit."

In a trading outlook statement to the stock market, Harveys' official line was that the millennium period gave greater uncertainty to company forecasts.

Mr Templeton added: "Either I'm going to be right or I'm going to wrong, big time."

Recent sales have been surging at the group, which owns a store at Whitebirk , Blackburn, as a result of the property boom, with like-for-like orders increasing 11.3 per cent in the six weeks to December 4.

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