BEDS and furniture group Silentnight is closing one of its oldest factories and moving production to Sunderland.

The company is blaming tough market conditions for the closure of its cabinet manufacturing site in Keighley, West Yorkshire, with the loss of 220 jobs.

Production will be moved to the Homeworthy operation, in the Southwick area of Sunderland, where Silentnight has invested £6.5m over the past two years. The factory currently employs 700 staff.

Silentnight chief executive Bill Simpson said: "We have more capacity at Sunderland than we have orders. The growth that we expected has just not happened. The closure of the Keighley operation will boost production at Sunderland."

Silentnight employs 5,000 people in the UK, with half of its revenue coming from its traditional beds business.

Mr Simpson said some of the staff facing unemployment in Keighley could be employed at one of the bed division's major sites 20 miles away in Barnoldswick, where 800 people work.

"We are already bussing in people from Keighley to Barnoldswick. There are other opportunities for some of these people," said Mr Simpson.

He said while retail sales in general had been strong in the run-up to Christmas the furniture arm had struggled.

"I was talking to furniture retailers earlier this week and they do not think it's that buoyant out there on the high street." But he said a new computer system and improved production had helped stabilise output across the Ducal business.

With strong trading in the beds division the group said it now expects pre-tax profits for the year to April 18 to be no less than £11.5m.

It warned in October that profits in the second half would not be "materially greater" than the first, when the group made £5.4m.