A Darlington retail firm's continued success could see it double its workforce over the next few years.

Savers Health and Beauty, which has its distribution centre at the town's Faverdale industrial estate, employs 250 staff and 45 drivers to deliver brand name toiletries and healthcare products to its 225 stores nationwide.

The company was founded by managing director Mr Richard Tonks in 1987 and started with just a handful of stores and a shared warehouse in Lancashire.

"As we got bigger we decided to open our own distribution centre and came to Darlington in April, 1997," said Mr Tonks. "We bought the former Inland Revenue printing centre, Stead House, and have spent £2m on refurbishment and converting it into a warehouse and offices."

In just four years the number of staff at the Savers distribution centre has grown from 37 to 250, with 100 new jobs in the last 12 months.

With plans to open another 20 stores throughout the country before Christmas, even more jobs will follow.

"I would think the workforce will double here over the next four or five years," said Mr Tonks.

A measure of the success of Savers can be seen in the fact that it was named sixth in the PricewaterhouseCooper's 100 fastest profit-growing firms survey in May.

The company has enjoyed profit growth of 98pc a year, from £723,000 in 1997 to £5.6m in 2000.

Mr Tonks said there was no magic formula behind the firm's meteoric rise - just old-fashioned hard work and giving customers what they wanted.

"We are just hard working, down-to-earth people," he said. "We have tried to create a nice shopping environment in our stores and, although we are primarily a discount store, we don't sell things out of cardboard boxes and only stock 'name' brands."

Mr Tonks was speaking at the opening of a newly-built staff facility at Stead House, complete with a locker room and subsidised canteen.

The creation of the facility has led to a further six jobs for catering staff.

"We had this space going to waste and thought it would be nice to give the staff somewhere comfortable to enjoy their breaks and lunches instead of a portable building," he said.

Following a tour of the site, the new facility was opened by the deputy mayor of Darlington, Coun Doris Jones.

She told Mr Tonks: "I think it's magnificent and it is a real credit to you and all you have done here."

Savers prides itself on having a happy workforce and staff turnover is very low. The firm set up a workers' council six months ago and holds monthly meetings with employees to listen to their ideas and discuss any problems that may occur.

"We try to be as free and open as we can be in our structure," said Mr Tonks, "and we talk to and confer with the workforce, both here and in the stores.

"We are very, very proud to have created something that employs a lot of people in the area. We are not all about highs and lows and peaks and troughs - we take employing people very responsibly."