MARKS & Spencer today opened its bigger and better store in Bolton town centre.

The revamped building has two extra floors. The former M & S store in the Market Place has closed down and moved into the new Deansgate building.

Meanwhile, the company today announced it is recruiting 2,000 extra staff to boost customer service.

A proportion of the extra staff have already been taken on, but the recruitment process would be completed by the end of March, the company said today.

The jobs boost comes on top of 1,500 new jobs created by M&S in the UK last year.

A spokeswoman said the jobs would be spread around the UK, but the busiest and most successful of its 286 stores would receive a higher proportion.

"We believe we are giving customers a good service but we think we need more staff in the busiest and most successful stores."

The announcement of the jobs boost coincides with results for the six months to September 28 which show M&S boosted pre-tax profits to £430.1 million compared with £385.4m in the corresponding period last year.

Shareholders will receive a 10pc higher interim dividend payout of 3.3p.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.