A leading Yorkshire-based furniture store is to move into the premises left vacant when one of the UK's biggest retailers went into administration last year.

John Peters Fine Furnishings has bought the former Courts store at the Forster Square retail park in Bradford city centre. It will be the Leeds-based retailer's 11th store across the county.

Courts, the long-established furniture retailer, went into administration in November last year, facing debts of about £250 million. When the doors were initially closed and then re-opened to allow customers to collect paid-for goods, many of the stores were inundated and staff suffered physical and verbal abuse.

The Bradford store was shut for good after a rescue deal for the company was agreed which kept just a handful of outlets in the 350-strong estate open.

John Peters is known to have been one of many retailers eyeing the properties made available and earlier this year bought the former Courts store in Huddersfield.

The opening of the Bradford store will mark a return to the city for the business which was founded in 1952 by Manny Cussins, who went on to become chairman of Leeds United during the Don Revie era.

The company opened in Bradford during the 1960s and, in the 1980s, changed its name to Waring and Gillow, finally closing just a few years ago having been sold to a group of City investors.

Current chairman John Cussins restarted the family firm ten years ago. It now also employs his two sons.

Mr Cussins said he had no hesitation in bringing the firm back to Bradford when the opportunity arose.

"In an industry which is very competitive and changing fast, both in style and in sources of supply, the benefits of being local, large enough to import from the Far East but small enough to react quickly to changes in style or demand has proven to be critical to our development," he said.

"The demise of Courts was not due to its staff or its stores; it was due to the inability of management to change and change quickly, as the market now requires."

He said that trading in Bradford would be "aggressive and competitive" but said he was confident it was the right place for the firm to be.

"Bradford has always been a successful commercial city and the previous success of the former Courts store, coupled with the regeneration of the city and the birth of new business ventures, encourages us to believe that this is already a place we must be, but moreover is a place going places," said Mr Cussins.

John Peters already has a store in Guiseley as well as outlets in Leeds, Hull, Wakefield, Doncaster, Huddersfield, Sheffield and York.

The new store in Bradford is due to open in mid to late May and is expected to create about 15 jobs.