The lights are on where Woolworths once was. Poundland Abingdon will be opening on Thursday 18th November 2010. The official opening will be two days later on Saturday 20th November when a mystery celebrity will cut the ribbon at 10am.
At the same time Poundland Glasgow, Holyhead and Chesterfield also have offical openings with a different mystery celebrity. That makes 4 Poundland opening on Saturday week, and 2 this coming Saturday where the mystery celebrities have just been revealed… Tracey Barlow from Coronation Street is opening Camberley, and Kirk Sutherland from Coronation Street is opening Droylsden.
Who would you like to see opening the new Poundland in Abingdon?
How about Take That?
More likely to be someone from radio Oxford……
hoorah!
i know snobs don’t like pound shops but you can’t argue against something like this attracting people to town
The bestest celebrity to open Abingdon’s new Poundland store would be the one and the only BACKSTREETER
Poundland!!! Its such a shame that no decent shops are interested in the town. I assume it will be similar to pound stretcher that used to be in the precinct. Selling rubbish that no one really wants!!!
Most likely Nicola Blackwood.
Is the pound shop slightly better quality than the 99p store??
In High Street.??.
Who lives in Oxfordshire..Robin Gibb brother in Thame?.
Jeremy Clarkson??, surely not??
I would prefer not to see it opening. We could do with an
Iceland or M&S Simply Food. That would be worth sending a “celebrity” to do the official opening.
Tim, Isabel, I completely argree with you, thank goodness I am not the only one who thinks this way.
The Chuckle Brothers or John Leslie.
sadly there’s not a pile of high quality shops desperate to move into abingdon – we should be grateful a shop that will generate significant footfall for the town is moving in.
Who knows they may stay as long as Cargo did. Before a better offer comes along. Lease runs out perhaps?.
They on a short or long lease??
I suspect a lot of the footfall will be browsers then later on less and less…
every poundshop i’ve ever been in has had people spilling out the door – they cause a certain mania.
Paul Gustafason of Eggbert “fame” nay?
Oh brilliant- Witney are getting an H&M, and we get a poundshop?? Abingdon really needs to up it’s game if they want to attract more people into town!
The shops we get are the ones that believe there is a market for their goods in the town.
That means we will have some discount shops, but there are also plenty at the other end of the scale.
The reason this unit is being let on short leases is probably because it is in the part of the centre that is likely to get redeveloped first. I imagine the leaseholders are aiming to retain as much flexibility as possible.
These retailers do their research and if they sense that a town likes discount shops then they will try and open there.
The old 99p/wow pound/wow pound + shop sold stuff that you would expect to be in a £1 shop. Poundland are pro’s at buying in bulk and selling cheap, lets face it EVERYONE loves a bargain and if the market in Abingdon is discount stores then thats what it is. We have 3 cheap’o’ shops and countless charity shops – why??? Because the shoppers love them! If we dont change our buying habbits then potential retailers are not interested, why would M&S spend thousands of pounds moving into a unit opposite Co-Op and a few hundred yards from Waitrose??? Come on its not about what a few shoppers want, its about the towns economy as a whole.
Retailers dont look at what customers want, its about how they can make their money, Unfortunatly Abingdon is not ready for the prestigious brands because there is no market for them, if Cargo was making a fortune then they would have absorbed the rent increase and said no more, but they saw that it was not viable because the market is not in Abingdon for their prices, its simple.
We need chains like Poundland to come and show the other chains that there is money to be had, the greed of the council and the precinct’s lanlords puts these companies off, so we should be grateful for 1 less empty shop and just support them as we will do our existing plethora of cheap shops.
As for a celebrity, who really cares???, i want those doors to open so i can get 50 toilet rolls for a quid!!!
i feel that parking is still one of the main problems for abingdon….. i personally will still go to didcot and use the shops there because you can free 2 hours parking there, the carpark is so easily accessible and the choice of shops is really good… the most recent being pcworld/currys… its a big shop too……….
and i am abingdon born and bred……so i should open it…ha ha
How about Mr Bean (aka Rowan Atkinson)?
Re other comments:
– I still can’t see how people can think it is cheaper to drive 5 or more miles to Didcot to save the £1.20 (max) parking fee in Abingdon. Yes it is nice if you want to go to the bigger shops, but for regular weekly shopping…?
– the overall vitality or footfall in the town centre will be a key factor influencing shops’ decision – the more people we can get into town the better so if Poundland brings them in and helps keep other shops going it will be better for us all in the long term.
for the weekly shop there is tescos and i would rather drive the extra mileage because of the choice of shops eg didcot have a butchers shop and i prefer their meat rather than supermarket stuff. bring back the days of clays, mcfisheries and the green grocers……then you may find me back in the town centre.
dont get me wrong i love abingdon and i feel quite sad at how the town has become such a ghost town. bring back some decent shops and my loyalty to abingdon would defintely return…..
No, it’s not cheaper to drive to Didcot for free parking. But paying £1.20 to park somewhere where there are no ‘real’ shops is a bit of a con.
If I wanted to buy, say, a jacket for work then I would most likely go to Didcot or Oxford. There’s not enough choice in either New Look or Dorothy Perkins and I don’t particularly want to pay a lot of money by stepping out of the mainstream. I just want something reasonably priced.
Oh, and while I’m there I might pop into the Body Shop, the Carphone Warehouse, and into the 99p store to pick up a bargain.
The list goes on – I’d make a lot of use of my 2 hours free parking.
But, if I want to pop into Abingdon for a coffee, a browse around the charity shops and a look in the estate agents windows, then I’m happy to pay £1.20 for the privilege. There is nowhere I can buy decent, long-lasting clothes for my children at a reasonable price except Tesco.
Abingdon is failing to get the people in, not because of the parking charge, but because of the poor mix of shops.
I don’t shop in Abingdon or Oxford or Didcot — I married the wife for all that.
You are right…it certainly is not cheaper to shop in Didcot…but people don’t calculate the cost of petrol/insurance/running cost for a car before heading to Didcot. They think about what is waiting for them when they get there, the fact it is easy to get into and out of and that they won’t pay to park their car.
The “perception” is that Didcot = free parking, Abingdon = £’s parking.
A lot of money is – or should be being, spent on addressing this ‘perception’, such as with Choose Abingdon Partnership etc I assume (?)…but that perception clearly hasn’t been addressed yet, judging by the comments on here at least…
Of course, whilst there is a justifiable argument that parking is NOT free in Witney or Didcot – it comes out of a similar kitty to Abingdon, so they must lose out with some other council run service…we (the Vale) or whoever could be forward thinking, innovative etc by….by say, offering free parking on Saturdays, or on market days, or free between 10 and 2, or free in August and December… Maybe they could keep, or even slightly INCREASE the parking fee in conjunction with abolishing all shop rents/rates or whatever…get the shops here, then people won’t be fussed about paying a couple of pounds to park as they will want to come to Abingdon. Given the “will” there are all manner of ways that could be found to address the issue – sorry, the “perception”, regarding the parking and shops…unfortunately, the present incumbents in power have resided over the demise of the Town and seem little interested in taking action…Let us hope people remember these issues when the local election arrives next year. The future of the town isn’t in their hands…it’s in ours!
mickey mouse is opening poundland , because abingdon is a joke …….
Mr duck – admit it Donald you are just jealous of your old friend Mickey! 🙂
Nicola Blackwood ????
Does she even know where Abingdon is ?
Good to see that having got elected on the back of being present in her constituency, and supporting the diamond interchange at the Abingdon A34 north junction, she has now reversed her position, and look her webpages havent seen an update since mid July !
Has she done anything for us since being elected ?
Seriously ?
Because I can’t see anything to suggest she has ?
So we swapped one ‘London centric’ MP for another.. shame..
excellent blog tho, long may it continue 🙂
Abingdon needs shops. We all agree on that. Anyone who has been to the 99p shops in Didcot or Cowley will realise that those shops bring a lot of people in. We buy all our crisps, biscuits, soft drinks, toiletries there, as well as crayons and colouring books for our youngest child. They have some real baragins, and will undercut tesco/co-op/waitrose 99.9% of the time. If this means that people are shopping in town again instead of just getting everything in the supermarket then it can only be a good thing. Even those of you who think its a bad thing must realise that there are a lot of local people who are struggling financially, those on benefits and the lower earners, and somewhere like poundland will be a godsend. Stop thinking with your own bank balance and start thinking about the town in general. Everyone loves or needs a bargain!!! Next will be B&M and Home Bargains!
The Celeb Is Caine Dingle From Emmerdale 🙂
I know folk don’t like the facts to get in the way of a good opinion, but Abingdon has one of the lowest shop vacancy rates in the country.
Yes there are some discount and charity shops, every town, including Didcot, has those. But there is also a wide range of very good quality independent retailers too.