Housewares Business-to-business magazine for housewares retailers and their suppliers
Home improvement and garden retailer Bunnings Warehouse launched a branch in the Kent town of Sittingbourne last Wednesday (September 27).
The 58,000sq ft store at Sittingbourne Retail Park on Mill Way replaces the former Homebase and has created 50 new full and part-time jobs.
The unit offers more than 30,000 home improvement and garden brands, plus a range of in-store services from paint mixing to key and timber cutting, an indoor play area, a garden centre and DIY workshops.
The store was officially opened by with former featherweight world boxing champion Barry McGuigan MBE. Grand Opening events taking place this weekend (September 30-October 1) and next (October 7-8) for families include face-painting, balloon modelling and a magic show and Peppa Pig & George for story time session.
Bunnings’ staff were busy ahead of the store opening, helping four community groups with projects in the locality. These included renovating an area in front of the community classroom at Canterbury Road Primary School, tidying up the external railway garden at Sittingbourne and Kemsley Light Railway, refurbishing a gallery for local artists to exhibit their work at the Community Art Hub and revamping benches and raised beds in the reading quadrant at Sunnybank Primary School.
Bunnings is a leading retailer of home improvement and outdoor living products in Australia and New Zealand. It acquired DIY chain Homebase for £340million in February 2016 – and plans to invest a further £500 million in building its Bunnings Warehouse business in the UK and Ireland over the next three to five years.
Sittingbourne joins six other Bunnings Warehouse stores in the UK: two in St. Albans, and one each in Hemel Hempstead, Milton Keynes, Folkestone and Broadstairs. It also operates as Homebase out of 251 trading locations.
