In anticipation of strong demand this Christmas, the high street retailer is looking to increase its existing 30,000-strong workforce by a third over the festive shopping season, taking on 10,000 temporary store workers across the UK. 

B&M Homestore is opening a second store in Carlisle, that will focus mainly on selling paint, soft furnishings, homeware and gardening goods. 

Following on from last year's successful event with Screwfix, BHETA has announced plans for another 'Innovation Day', to give members the chance to get their ranges in front of the Screwfix buying team. 

"The business rates system is no longer fit-for-purpose" and "is particularly damaging for the retail industry", said the British Retail Consortium, which has published a report calling for a reform on business rates, adding that it wants to work closely with the Government on the issue. 

Garden centres in the Scottish region are offering advice to customers in the wake of investigations into the link between possible contaminated bags of compost and confirmed cases of Legionella longbeachae. 

Consumer products brand, JML, which specialises in TV home shopping experts and broadcaster ITV are extending their existing teleshopping relationship with the launch of a new shopping channel called The Store. 

Ebay and Argos have joined forces in a new trial where selected Ebay sellers will be able to offer a Click & Collect service, with customers able to pick up their items at Argos stores throughout the UK. 

The HTA Garden Futures Conference will feature Josh McBain, from Future Foundation, a consumer trends and insight organisation, as he explores how the retail environment is set to evolve in response to the rise of multichannel shopping. 

Tile and wood flooring retailer opens store in Newtownabbey, Belfast. 

Retail sales volumes fell by 0.9% in August, compared to a growth of 1.1% in July, according to the Office for National Statistics. Sales in household goods stores were down, as well. Year-on-year estimates for August this year, however, showed that the quantity bought in the retail industry increased by 2.1%. 

To meet unprecendented demand for places, BHETA will now be holding the event at The Regency Hotel, Solihull. 

Squire's Garden Centres has appointed Specialist Waste Recycling (SWR) to manage all its waste across its 14 sites in the south of England. 

Exhibitors on the floor expressed mixed views over whether the garden and leisure show should have reverted to its original Sunday to Tuesday format this year. 

Pet food company, Natures Menu, won a hat-trick of awards on the first day of PATS Harrogate at the inaugural PetQuip Industry Awards, held last weekend. The raw food specialists won the Supplier of the Year award and earlier picked up PATS New Product Showcase awards in both the cat and dog categories, too. 

Homewares retailer Dunelm has reported a pre-tax profit figure of £108.1m for the 52 weeks to the end of June 2013, a rise of 12.3% against the same period last year. It added that it has also seen an 80% growth in multichannel revenues; this now represents over 4% of the total business. 

Wickes has renewed its sponsorship with TalkSport, the world's biggest sports radio station, for another year. 

The Garden Centre Group has acquired the Garden & Leisure Group from Louis Delhaize, which also owns leading French garden centre group Truffaut. 

The Garden Centre Association (GCA) has revealed the location of its next annual conference and the winners of its 'guess the venue competition'. 

Home Retail Group has reported sales at Homebase in Q2 rose by 9.3% to £400m and like-for-like sales climbed 11%, compared to just 1.4% in Q1 of this year. It's being reported as the retailer's strongest performance in over a decade. 

Next has revealed that it has planning permission to open 11 more of its large format Fashion, Home and Garden stores, as it reports robust sales figures for the first half of this year.