Nearly 200 jobs could be created at the site of a former bathroom factory in Bradford, which has lain dormant for about two years.

Halifax-based Italian Furniture Company has applied to Bradford Council for permission to change the use of part of the former Shires Bathrooms site, in Beckside Road, Lidget Green, creating 190 jobs.

Sixty workers were laid off from Shires in April, 2009, after administrators were called in by the company’s owners.

As well as the Italian Furniture Company, the proposals would see the building occupied by Tradex, a company selling goods including clothing, footwear and household items and Slumbernights bed manufacturers.

Mohammed Saeed, company director for the three businesses, said the Italian Furniture Company was already operating from the site and permission was being sought to move Tradex and Slumbernights there as well.

He said: “All three of my businesses would be housed together which would make them easier to operate. To get them all under one roof would be brilliant. When the manufacturing side moves, we will be training people to make mattresses.

“When the retailing side moves in we will need shop assistants. The business will be good for the area.”

Some managerial positions will move from the businesses’ existing premises in Halifax, Hull and Leeds but the majority of workers will be recruited from the Bradford area and in particular the Great Horton ward.

The application to the Council reads: “With regard to loss of employment land this site has employed nobody for two years and the scheme will create about 190 jobs on the site.

“Sixty will be in manufacturing, 40 in the warehousing and distribution and 100 in retail employed in three shifts.

“More people will be employed in the retail use and in a much smaller floor area than in the other two uses.”

Shires Bathooms, part of the Irish-based Qualcaram Group, called in accountants Ernst & Young in April, 2009, when workers were laid off.

Shires moved to Bradford from its original Guiseley base in 1990 and occupied the 11-acre former Thorn (Bairds) TV factory.

It invested £4m and brought 200 jobs to the city at that time.