SUPERMARKET group Somerfield is to take control of nine Safeway stores in the region as part of a multi-million pound deal involving rival Morrisons, it emerged yesterday.

Morrisons, which bought Safeway last year, said the disposal of 114 stores across the UK for £260m would allow it to concentrate on larger sites and speed up the conversion of stores to its own brand.

Somerfield will take control of smaller Safeway stores at Cockerton in Darlington, Linthorpe in Middlesbrough, South Shields in South Tyneside, Stockton and nearby Yarm, Whitby in North Yorkshire, Loftus in east Cleveland, Ferryhill in County Durham, and Haxby in York, among others nationwide.

A Somerfield spokeswoman said that all 9,000 staff in the stores would be transferred and there would be no redundancies.

The deal does not depend on approval from the Office of Fair Trading, although Somerfield may have to sell two stores.

Somerfield is also in the middle of a refit programme involving more than 1,200 shops under its Somerfield and Kwik Save brands.

It said that trading at both chains this month and last month was in line with management expectations, although market conditions remained tough.

Somerfield has bought 63 of the 114 stores and the remaining 51 sites have been bought by Northwharf Investments, which will lease the stores to Somerfield.

Morrisons has sold the bulk of the 52 shops it was required to offload by competition authorities.

Waitrose, Sainsbury's and Tesco have already bought several stores in the North-East and North Yorkshire.