A popular furniture store is now closed to new customers after it shifted more than 1,000 items a day earlier than expected.

Lincoln Furniture Warehouse, otherwise known as the Big Yellow Building in St Peter's Street, Maidstone, was due to close today following an announcement at the beginning of last week.

For the past two days queues of customers stretched deep into its car park and by 5pm on Saturday managers decided their remaining stock was so small it was not worth opening for trade the following day.

Owner Steve Swan said: "The response has been absolutely fantastic, we pretty much sold out yesterday afternoon and we're thrilled.

"The people of Kent have been amazing, we had a big queue in store after hours. We only have a few items left but not enough to have a meaningful opening.

"We now have around 1,000 deliveries to make in the next few weeks so there's still a lot of hard work to be done but we have a lot of good guys working for us.

"I would like to apologise to anyone who suffered problems with traffic because of our sale, we did our absolute best to keep up."

Customers who have goods to collect will be able to attend the store during its normal Monday to Friday trade hours and will be kept informed. It is also open until for 4pm today for this purpose.

The business remains 100% solvent and employs 17 staff who are all being made redundant.

Mr Swan says the company is working with a recruitment consultant and some of his staff have already been head hunted.

The company has been based in Maidstone for 16 years but increased competition and a plan to build a supermarket next to its premises was the reason for its closure.