MORE than 200 shop staff and call centre workers are to lose their jobs, after retail chain Index announced detailed store closure plans.

But up to a further 75 jobs were saved, after rival firm Argos yesterday snapped up three of its North-East sites.

Terry Duddy, Argos Retail Group chief executive, said: "The purchase of these stores enables us to extend Argos' proven model of offering better choice, value and convenience to more customers in a cost effective way."

Littlewoods, which owns Index, is shutting down all the 93 Index concessions within its stores.

This includes sites in Darlington, Gateshead, Harrogate, Gateshead MetroCentre, Middlesbrough, North Shields, Stockton, and Sunderland. Littlewoods would not give precise jobs figures, but said each store employs between five and 20 staff.

John Gorle, national officer for shopworkers' union Usdaw, will meet with Littlewoods chiefs tomorrow, to argue that it should redeploy the Index workers.

He said: "Index workers have produced a minor miracle keeping Index afloat.

"It is a fact that highly trained staff are at a real premium in the booming retail sector. It is in Littlewoods' long-term business interest to seriously consider transferring Index staff."

About 100 staff at the Littlewoods Group call centre in Sunderland who worked on the Index business will also lose their jobs in phased redundancies over the next six months.

Littlewoods revealed on Monday that Argos was interested in buying half of its 66 stand-alone Index stores, in a £44m deal.

Yesterday, Argos confirmed this includes three Index sites in the region - at York, Scarborough and Newcastle.

Argos said the 33 stores it is buying made £75m in the year to April 30, 2004. They will be launched as Argos stores after a three-month rebranding period.

Argos will take on all 800 Index workers at the sites and will also acquire the Index brand and website.

The only North-East Index store not snapped up by Argos is in Hartlepool and will close.

Sir David and Sir Frederick Barclay bought Index when they acquired Littlewoods Group in 2002 for £750m.

They ran out of patience with Index after it racked up losses totalling more than £100m in the past 20 years.

Total job losses are expected to reach 3,200, including store staff, 350 workers at its West Midlands distribution centre and 170 posts at its head office in Liverpool.

The closure of the in-store Index sites fuelled market speculation that the Barclay brothers are close to selling the 119-strong Littlewoods store chain.

Primark, the discount clothing retailer owned by Associated British Foods, is the favourite to buy the stores.