Furniture and homewares Dunelm is understood to be withdrawing plans of opening a new store in Southend.

The retailer had earmarked the former Primark store in the Royals Shopping Centre.

However, with the centre’s sale still incomplete, Dunelm has shelved plans for a store there after switiching its attention to other sites.

Dunelm recently opened a new store store in Basildon’s Mayflower Retail Park some two months ago, and also has a store based in Chelmsford.

It has been over a year since Dunelm stalled on the Southend location and confirmed that it has no immediate plans to open in the city following its Basildon launch.