A scramble is taking place for 200 new jobs on offer at a new monster B & Q planned for York.

In two days more than 700 people called a recruitment line set up to answer responses to an Evening Press advertisement calling for recruits to the vast B&Q Warehouse scheduled to open on the Osbaldwick industrial estate in March.

A B&Q phone recruiter said: "It's been a deluge. The phones just haven't stopped ringing. We're working flat out."

The plan, partv of a £216 million national building programme by B&Q involves a massive site-swap between B&Q and furniture store MFI.

The swap-shop scheme foresees ultimate demolition of MFI on its site at the junction of Hull Road and Link Road to make way for the 150,000 sq ft multi-million pound B&Q.

MFI will them move to B&Q's vacated site in Foss Islands Road. The new B&Q, three and a half times bigger than its 45,000 sq ft Foss Islands Road site, will have more than 40,000 products under one roof for both trade and DIY customers. The 50 staff at Foss Islands Road have already been invited to move to the new B&Q. The 200 jobs are extra.

And recruitment has been for both full-time and part time posts with shifts on days, evenings, weekends or nights.

Applicants have been asked to take part in a special "touch tone" interview in which they can select from optional answers to questions.

Jenny Ellis, one of six busy interviewers at B&Q's recruitment centre in Kingston, Surrey, said: "Their answers are assessed and if they seem to be the right for the job they want we then invite them formally to apply and the manager will then select from these applicants who will be interviewed."

Among the many who have phoned to register their interests are people aged more than 50. "The word is out that we have a policy of recruit the over 50s who tend to be excellent at DIY, have a wealth of experience and know-how and who tend to be enthusiastic.

''They public are assured by them. They like them."

The B&Q Warehouse store has met with opposition from local parish councils and residents, mainly on the grounds of the extra traffic it would generate, and the scheme has been modified with improvements to the Melrosegate-Hull Road junction envisaged.

But when MFI moves to the Foss Islands Road site there is likely to be a loss of six jobs, going from 21 staff to 15.

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