330 staff made redundant at Comet

More than 300 staff have been made redundant at stricken electricals retail chain Comet.

Administrator Deloitte announced 330 job losses across Comet's head office and support centres, but stressed there had been no redundancies among shop staff and all Comet's 236 stores remain open.

The bulk of the staff cuts have been made in Comet's head office in Rickmansworth, Herts, as well as its site in Hull and call centre in Clevedon, Somerset.

Deloitte added that it is holding talks with a number of potential buyers for Comet, which collapsed into administration a week ago.

Neville Kahn, joint administrator of Comet, said: "We are in discussions with a number of parties who have expressed interest in parts of the business and we continue to work hard to preserve jobs."

Deloitte said it is seeing record levels of trade after launching a sale across Comet stores on Thursday.

They had suspended gift cards from being used in stores last weekend, but this was lifted earlier this week for vouchers purchased and paid for in full by members of the public.

However, Deloitte has maintained the temporary suspension on gift cards which have been issued to people on behalf of a corporate customer.

The collapse of Comet marks one of the biggest high street casualties since the demise of Woolworths in 2008 and came a month after the failure of JJB Sports.