Poundland to reopen Shrewsbury store next week

It will proceed thoughtfully, starting with the reopening of about 30 stores on Monday.

Poundland, which has its main base in Willenhall, has kept most of its stores open for essential shopping, but in March it placed one in nine of its stores in hibernation, largely where it had another store close by or was in a shopping centre that had difficulty remaining open during the coronavirus lockdown.\

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'Operation Sleeping Beauty' will see it gently begin the process of bringing stores out of hibernation. Other stores that were temporarily closed will reopen in the coming weeks.

Robust health and safety measures will operate, as they do in all Poundland stores that have remained open. Measures customers can expect to see include marshals at the door to limit the number of customers in store at any one time, floor markers to help customers maintain social distancing, perspex screens at checkouts to protect colleagues and customers, the closure of every other self-checkout to make appropriate social distancing easier and rigorous hygiene routines that include colleagues washing their hands every 20 minutes and key surfaces being wiped down every hour.

“We’ve never been prouder of our role as a retailer at the heart of communities and high streets,” said Poundland’s retail director Austin Cooke.

“While safety has to come first, we’re delighted to be able to begin reopening hibernating Poundland stores to fully serve those communities across the UK with the essentials they need.”

In normal times, Poundland attracts seven million shoppers a week to its stores across the UK.