AS WORCESTER wilted in the heatwave there was not a fan to be found after many city shops sold out.

Some customers were so desperate to keep cool they even offered to buy a works fan in Staples in the Shrub Hill Retail Park, Worcester, which had been put on the tills for the comfort of shop assistants.

Worcester remains in the grip of a level three heat alert, which is where temperatures have reached 30C twice in the day and 15C twice at night on two consecutive days.

Kim Smith, a key associate at Staples, said she was struggling to hang onto her own fan, which she had for five or six years because customers kept on trying to buy it off her.

Mrs Smith said: “My general manager keeps joking that I should sell the fan for £50 but it’s the works fan. A lady was trying to buy it the other night.”

The company sold out of fans four days ago and staff say they have had 20 customers a day asking about fans and even more on the phone. They have sold between 50 and 60 fans since the heatwave began and are down to their last two water coolers.

Nationally, over the past week, Argos has seen more than a tenfold sales increase in fans. Argos in Blackpole said they were expecting 40 fans yesterday but warned they would sell out extremely quickly.

Sales of fans and air conditioning units in Homebase increased by nearly 400 per cent last week compared to the previous week.

A worker at Maplin, the electrical specialists on the Elgar Retail Park in Blackpole, said they could order fans in but they would not arrive until Monday and a worker at customer services at Tesco in St Peter’s advised people to try to order them online as they were sold out.

James Irish, assistant manager at Apollo, said they had sold 320 fan units since last Wednesday, including pedestal and desktop fans and four air conditioning units. He said: “The other day I shouted across the store ‘if anyone is here for fans, we haven’t got any!’ People turned around and walked out.”

It was the same story at all their Homebase stores at the Elgar Retail Park in Blackpole, Bath Road and Hylton Road. The Hylton Road store was still selling hand-held fans but none of the larger, office-style fans yesterday.

A member of staff at Blackpole said they had expected a delivery of fans on Thursday but they had not arrived, which may be because the depot had run out. Staff in Bath Road said they hoped for a delivery on Tuesday.

B&M Bargains in St Martin’s Quarter in Worcester did not have any fans in stock and a man working there said he did not think they would get any more in.

Stores are also reporting they have sold out of paddling pools.

  • THE heat has caused a delay to a small number of bin collections in Worcester.

Worcester City Council said one of its vehicles broke down late on Thursday while collecting rubbish in the Northwick and Barbourne area.

Claire Neville, communications officer with the local authority, said the breakdown occurred as a result of the intense heat, adding crews carried out extra rounds early yesterday morning to catch up.

“A small number of homes were missed,” she said.

“We’re now up to speed.”