For staff at the doomed Allders' department store in Oxford, the news could not have been more depressing.

The future for many of them when they arrived for work yesterday was looking decidedly bleak.

By the end of the day, the outlook was even worse.

Primark, the company in line to take over the Westgate Centre's flagship store, had pulled out.

The choice staff faced before yesterday's shock news -- redundancy or at least six months' unpaid leave before returning to work -- was none too appealing.

How many workers, with mortgages, families to feed and other bills to meet, could afford such a long layoff?

Now it appears even those derisory offers are no longer on the table.

Primark has apparently pulled out after it was pointed out that under the terms of the lease, the property had to be used as a department store. It simply did not fit the bill.

Now the administrators must start all over again to find a new buyer.

We suspect that many leading retailers will not be tempted -- with plans in the pipeline to revamp and extend the Westgate, they may prefer to hold fire and wait for the new development before moving in.

We hope, for the sake of the Allders' staff, that a quick sale of the store can be negotiated so that their futures are assured. But the administrators' task in attracting a new tenant may not be easy.