Carlisle’s Bathstore outlet is to close after it was not included in a deal between its administrators and Homebase.

Bathstore’s administrators BDO LLP had confirmed that the city’s store at Currock Trade Centre, in Currock Road, is one of the specialist bathroom chain’s 91 that will wind down its display stock before closing.

Home and garden giant Homebase has acquired Bathstore's website and 44 of its stores, safeguarding around 154 shop floor jobs and a further 25 at its head office in Welwyn Garden City.

However, around 200 jobs are set to go at the stores not included in the deal. Neither BDO or Bathstore were able to confirm how many jobs would be lost at Carlisle.

Some 159 redundancies have already been made at Bathstore since BDO were appointed as administrators last month.

The deal with Homebase was secured by BDO restructuring partners, Ryan Grant and Tony Nygate.

Mr Grant said: “In a difficult situation, we have been able to secure the future of the Bathstore brand and the transfer of 44 stores to Homebase to maximise realisations for creditors and protect as many jobs as possible.”

However, in the same statement, BDO added: “The remaining stores that are not being transferred to Homebase as part of the sale will continue to trade for a number of weeks while remaining display stock is sold off.”

At the time of its administration, Bathstore employed 531 people and had 135 stores.

Its demise was blamed on several months of difficult trading, as well as the failure of talks to find a buyer for the business, which has been owned by American billionaire Warren Stephens since he backed a management buyout in 2014.

Homebase chief executive Damian McGloughlin said it would roll out a number of Bathstore concessions into its stores over the coming 18 months.

He said the acquisition "complements Homebase's reinvigorated range", as the company ramps up its efforts to get back on a sound financial footing.

"As a result of the hard work of the Homebase team, our turnaround is ahead of plan," said Mr McGloughlin.

“While we still have a significant amount of work to do, the customer response to our new ranges has been very encouraging and we are on track to break even this year against a loss of over £100 million last year.”