TWO hundred jobs are expected to be created after a houseware company struck a deal to buy the former Ravenhead Glass site.

Speke based firm, the Rayware Group, will use the Nutall Street factory, for storage. But the deal will not involve production re-starting at the 150-year-old glassmaker, which closed in March 2001, with more than 200 job losses.

The deal follows Rayware's decision to buy the Ravenhead product name and stock last year. Already the firm sells glassware and barware bearing the former company's trademark.

A spokesperson for Rayware, one of the biggest houseware companies in the country which also sells tableware and furniture, said: "We bought the Ravenhead site recently from the administrators Begbies Traynor and we are hoping to create 200 new jobs. We will use some of the site for storage of our products, creating up to 20 new jobs initially and will let out the remainder for commercial, light engineering and industrial use.

"We will be moving into the site in the next four to five weeks after it has been cleaned up. However, the site does need some major redevelopment as parts of it have fallen into disrepair."

The spokesperson said Rayware would not reveal how much they had paid for the site. Dears Brack surveyors have been appointed to manage the development.