Why life is sweet again for old Woolies stores (From Worcester News)

Why life is sweet again for old Woolies stores

4:23pm Friday 29th January 2010

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IT was a stalwart of the British High Street, but a year after Woolworths locked its doors for the final time in Worcestershire it has been replaced.

Woolworths had become a high street institution famed for its pick ’n’ mix, confectionery, toys and children’s clothes since the first store opened in Britain in 1909.

However, the old stores in Worcester, Evesham and Malvern, which closed last year, have been filled by other companies and are thriving once again.

The Worcester store is now home to TK Maxx, Malvern’s is an Iceland and Evesham’s is an Alworths.

Alworths was the brainchild of Andy Latham, an ex-employee of Woolworths, who opened the new store and even gave jobs to eight ex-Woolworths employees in the Evesham store.

Mr Latham, aged 44, the former head of stores and concession development for Woolworths, worked for the company for 28 years, starting off in the stock room and working his way up through the ranks. He is now the managing director of Alworths.

Out of 13 people working in the new firm’s head office, eight worked for Woolworths – largely, Mr Latham said, because they understand the basic principles of the company.

He said: “The reason I employed a lot of people from Woolworths was because people knew the market and what worked and what didn’t. The store’s perspective is all about being part of the local community. Take our team in Evesham. The manager was involved in Woolworths so knows the local community and appreciates what the proposition is about.”

Mr Latham said it was no accident that the chain decided to open a new store in Evesham.

He said “Alworths has 800 stores and to some extent they are mainly old Woolworths stores with new investment. Part of my role at Woolworths was looking at locations that made money for Woolworths, and Evesham is a good example. It was a profitable store for Woolworths.

“Those which were based in a big city centre faced a lot of competition and they lost money. So when we developed Alworths we focused on where Woolworths made money – generally market towns, not in the big city centres. My vision was that people still wanted to shop on the local high street and there was still a market for it.

“I focused on where Woolworths was successful so we could view and understand what the market is and understand the challenges and the competition .”

For Mr Latham, Alworths is good news for Evesham’s shoppers and for the town in general.

He said: “For me it’s about getting people on local high streets, rather than perhaps getting everything they need in a supermarket. Evesham is doing a lot of good work to regenerate the town centre and we want to piggy back on the back of that.

“Woolworths was in everyone’s hearts for 99 years. It was a much-loved retail brand. When I’ve spoken to people about Alworths I have said I wanted to pick out the best parts of Woolworths and bring it up to date. The Woolworths stores were cluttered and you couldn’t always get what you wanted so we made sure that Alworths stores are clean and tidy and there’s space for people to shop. If you cannot get around the shop then you’re not going to shop there, you need to be able to move around freely.”

So has the new store been a hit with shoppers?

Mr Latham said: “We’ve had really encouraging feedback. People can tell us what they think of the stores through the website and it’s been mainly positive. Of course, not every comment has been good so we work hard to improve where we need to. People like having a variety store back on the high street, which isn’t a pound shop but has good value products and they know that they get what they pay for.”

The TK Maxx store in Worcester, which brought 50 jobs to the city, is popular with shoppers on the lookout for bargain clothes.

Meanwhile, the store in Malvern has become frozen supermarket specialist Iceland, which has opened 51 stores across the UK in place of Woolworths.

An Iceland spokeswoman said: “The opportunity to purchase the former Woolworth stores came at the right moment and fitted in with our store opening programme.

“When we researched the potential new Iceland sites, the ones we chose complemented our existing estate very well. We are extremely pleased with the fantastic response from our new and existing customers.”

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