PLANS for a home-decor store on a former supermarket site should help smarten up the town centre, say Blackpool traders.

Wilkinsons, based in Worksop, Nottinghamshire, is nearing a deal to take over the vacant Kwiksave store on the corner of Dickson Road and Talbot Road.

If contracts are signed on schedule at the end of next month, Wilkinsons hope to open their new store next February.

With 160 centres across the country, the company specialises in home-decor, curtains, bedding, kitchen and gardening equipment, even clothing. The site has been vacant since May.

Alan Hayes, chairman of the Blackpool Combined Association representing 1,000 shopkeepers, hoteliers and residents, said: "Our membership is in favour of any sort of use rather than see a prominent site like that empty.

"A store like this should help smarten up the area, which needs more than a facelift. I'd like to see it all disappear and something new in its place."

That prospect is not far from becoming reality - London-based developers Chelverton Properties are currently negotiating to take over 14 acres adjacent to the Kwiksave site, including demolition of the 1930s-built bus station and a host of businesses and flats behind it, making way for a new foodstore, multiplex cinema, shops, a restaurant and 1,200-space car park.

And sale negotiations for the nearby former Odeon cinema - an art deco listed building - are said to be nearing completion. It is understood a major Blackpool entertainments company is the front-runner and speculation suggests it could be Basil Newby's company In The Pink Leisure.

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