UK DIY News

Bunnings opens first store in South Yorkshire

Home improvement and garden retailer Bunnings Warehouse officially opened its doors in Rotherham today, 14th December.

The new store located on Parkgate, is over 70,000 square feet and offers customers more than 30,000 leading home improvement and garden products from a wide range of global market- leading brands. Other services include everything from paint mixing to key cutting, a garden centre, timber cutting and in-store D.I.Y. Workshops.

The store is the second ex-B&Q warehouse acquired by Wesfarmers, the first being the Bunnings Warehouse that opened in Folkestone in July. The B&Q Warehouse in Rotherham originally opened in 2009, after relocating from nearby Thornhill and closed in June 2016 under plans by the owner, Kingfisher plc to "transform its offer" to customers. The B&Q store at Cortonwood in Rotherham remains open, whilst the Homebase previously operated at Parkgate Shopping Centre closed in 2011.

Read - Latest Bunnings Warehouse opens in Folkestone.

Bunnings’ team members have already been busy ahead of today’s store opening, helping with projects in the Rotherham area. This included redecorating two bedrooms at Rotherham Hospice for families and installing shelving at Shiloh Rotherham, a drop-in centre which offers hot food, clothing and facilities for the homeless.

Rotherham Complex Manager, Ian Smith, said: “All our team members have worked really hard to get the store ready for opening and have undertaken many hours of training to make sure we have the expertise to help customers with home or garden projects.”

To celebrate the opening, Johnny Nelson, former Professional Boxer is joining a welcome breakfast for team members.

Johnny said: “It’s been a successful morning opening the store and celebrating with the Bunnings team members. I have no doubt that the store will be a huge success.”

The store will host a weekend of events on 16-17 December, where customers can enjoy a range of family activities including the famous Bunnings Sausage Sizzle, face-painting, balloon modelling and even join Santa for a Story Time session (see in store for details).

Bunnings, the leading retailer of home improvement and outdoor living in Australia and New Zealand, acquired Homebase for £340million in February 2016 – and plans to invest a further £500million building a new Bunnings Warehouse business in the UK and Ireland over a five- year plus timeframe.

The twelve Bunnings stores now open and trading include the following (click on links for full address and details):-