Value home retailer The Range has announced its new headquarters will open in the summer and will create 450 new jobs in its home town of Plymouth.

The new HQ will be connected to an existing store in Plymouth, and will hold up to 700 staff – adding an additional 450 jobs across a number of departments such as buying, ecommerce, IT, marketing and accounts to the existing 250-strong head office staff.

Once completed, the new head office will link to a new The Range superstore, which the retailer said would allow for increased staff training and be a “huge step in the continued success of the company”.

The Range was founded by owner Chris Dawson, who opened his first store in Plymouth in 1989, then trading as CDS (Chris Dawson Superstores).

The retailer now trades from 164 sites across the UK and is aiming for a store portfolio of 600 sites.

“It was always very important for me to keep our Head Office operations in our home city of Plymouth and the place that CDS The Range started; I have staff that have worked for the company for over 20 years so having a new office built just down the road from the current office is a big deal to all of us,” said Dawson.

“Having the new superstore next to our head office also means that it can be used as a training academy and centre of excellence so that Range staff from across the UK can come down to Plymouth and be trained to the highest standards.”

In November, The Range posted a 22% fall in earnings to £42.6m but reported that sales rose 14% to £869m.

Dawson had been considering an IPO of the value home retailer in 2017, and drafted in former House of Fraser chief executive Nigel Oddy to run the business that year, but talks of a float have since subsided.

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