CLOTHING retailer Primark was yesterday preparing to strengthen its high street presence by keeping more former Littlewoods sites than planned.

Primark, which bought 120 Littlewoods stores in a £409m deal in July, said it expected to keep 1.15 million square feet of space, compared with 800,000 square feet expected, before selling the rest to rival retailers.

A spokesman for the company said it would keep about 40 Littlewoods stores - at the top end of the 25 to 40 figure predicted when the deal was announced in July.

"We are not at this stage publishing a list of where these stores are," he said.

The Littlewoods chain, which began in 1937, held some of the UK's most prominent high street sites.

Yesterday's decision came after Primark, which has stores in Darlington, Middlesbrough, Newcastle, Hartlepool and Sunderland, completed an evaluation of the Littlewoods portfolio and revealed trading at its own stores had been very strong in recent months.

Parent company Associated British Foods, which owns brands that include Twinings, Ryvita and Kingsmill bread, said that same-store sales at Primark were expected to be 12 per cent higher in the second half of its financial year - bringing full-year growth to nine per cent.

The figure is stronger than that reported by many high street rivals hit by the recent slowdown in consumer spending.