STAFF at a convenience store are waiting to hear if they will keep their jobs after the rival chain on the opposite side of the street bought out the company.

Alldays in High Street,Snodland,which employs 10 full and part-time staff, is part of Alldays plc, which has been bought by the Co-operative Group in a £131 million deal. The Co-op has a store in Snodland High Street which opened earlier this year.

A spokeswoman for the company said: "There are no job guarantees. We have just signed the deal and we have now got to evaluate the business. Under the agreement employment rights and pensions have been safeguarded.

"It may well be that the businesses might be consolidated but it is too early to say. We need to look at what the businesses are doing. It could be that they have different customer bases."

The Alldays manager said they had been told they could not comment. Before the sale Alldays plc operated more than 600 convenience stores in the UK, including 200 in the South East.

But due to the level of debt the group was eventually put into the hands of receivers PricewaterhouseCoopers which subsequently sold the assets and business of the company.