DISCOUNT retailer Wilkinson could take over the city centre store vacated in the summer by the upmarket supermarket chain Waitrose.

In August Waitrose closed its 18,000 sq ft branch in The Gates shopping centre, Durham, after two years of making a loss.

The store, formerly a Safeway, employed about 103 people, just under half of whom transferred to the new outlet the company opened in Newcastle at about the time Durham closed.

Now it looks as if Wilkinson, which sells a wide range of value goods, could be looking to take up at least some of the empty space.

The firm has lodged a planning application with Durham City Council to put non-illuminated fascia signs next to the centre’s car park entrance and above the pedestrian entrance on Millburngate.

But both the retailer and the shopping centre are staying tight-lipped.

No-one was available for comment at the Wilkinson headquarters press office and a spokeswoman for the centre’s operators, London-based ING Real Estate Investment Management, said that she could not comment.

But she did say that the fact a planning application had been submitted did not signify that a deal had been finalised. "Retailers can do that. They can be looking at different plots and just to speed up the legal process they can put in for signage consent anyway.’’ Wilkinson has more than 318 stores throughout the country and aims to increase the number to 500 by 2012.

It currently has 13 branches in the North-East, including Bishop Auckland, Peterlee, Seaham, Sunderland and Darlington.

The family-run business was founded in Leicester in 1930 and sells toiletries to gardenware, electrical goods and pet care products.