COLLAPSED fashion chain Peacocks has been saved by a senior executive with backing from an international consortium, it has been announced. Chief operating officer Steve Simpson will take over the business, saving 2,000 jobs and 200 stores, which he hopes to reopen once lockdown restrictions on non-essential retailers ease. Peacocks has branches at New River Retail Park at Five Lane Ends in Bradford, the Airedale Shopping Centre in Keighley, and the Northgate Retail Centre, in Heckmondwike. The chain was part of retail mogul Philip Day s Edinburgh Woollen Mill (EWM) fashion empire which collapsed in November last year. Mr Day was the biggest creditor of Peacocks and is owed money by the business he once owned.