TWO major department stores are set to move into Burnley's new Curzon Square shopping development.

T J Hughes and Wilkinson's are ready to sign up, it was announced by David James, project executive with the Charter Walk owners Great Portland Estates.

Both shops sell a wide range of household products from gardening and toiletries to music and paints.

If Burnley Council grants planning permission and the Secretary of State for the Environment approves the scheme, work should begin in May next year and the centre should be open for Christmas trade in 1999.

Developers are hoping to appease protesters who have campaigned for St James' spire to be preserved by announcing they are planning to incorporate the church and its spire in some kind of art work and have called for Burnley people to put forward their suggestions.

They spent two and a half years considering more than 30 plans to try to include the spire and the peace gardens in a scheme. But with the council insisting a new car stack must be built before the existing one is demolished, Mr James said there was no room to manoeuvre to keep the spire where it is.

The top two floors of the new department stores will be an extension to a new stack on Brown Street and will also house Burnley ShopMobility, providing disabled shoppers with direct access into Charter Walk and the market.

At this stage the company is proposing to build the new stores in glass and sandy-coloured stone and brick, and replace what they describe as a "nasty, dimly lit and frightening car stack" with a bright shopper-friendly place to park.

Mr James said: "We do see this as essential for the continued prosperity of the town.

"When there is increasing competition in this part of Lancashire, then this sort of development is essential if Burnley is to continue its renaissance.

"It costs 10 to 20 times as much to attract a new customer than it does to keep existing ones. We have a long term commitment to Burnley. We are not developers who move in and sell on."

Full plans will be submitted to Burnley Council in August and they will go on public display for comments and suggestions.

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