A furniture company is closing its Durham store later this summer and heading out of the city centre.

Durham Pine, which has showrooms throughout the country, will close its North Road premises next month, when the lease runs out.

The company, which has its head office in Sunderland, will move staff and stock to the showroom at Sherburn Hill, the first opened by the company, which has been expanded.

Ian Stewart, the company's assistant marketing manager, said: "We have been in Durham since 1984. But across the country, we are going for opening bigger sites because we want more product in stock for customers to take away. People don't want to wait six weeks for their furniture to arrive.

"We have expanded the Sherburn Hill warehouse facilities and we are combining the sites so we'll have more to offer customers in one place.

"Customers like bigger sites and they like to have a bigger choice.

"We have had the odd call from people wondering what was happening - thinking that we were in trouble.

"But that isn't the case at all. In fact, we are expanding and looking to increase the number of showrooms to 100."

Mr Stewart said that the Sherburn Hill showroom had more parking and it would be easier for customers to take away their purchases.

The closure is another blow to North Road, which has lost several shops in recent years which have been replaced by amusement arcades and charity shops.

A new traffic system - including a partial one-way street - has been introduced as an experiment to ease congestion and improve safety. Environmental improvements could follow if the scheme becomes permanent.