New store opens on Wantage Woolies site (From Oxford Mail)

New store opens on Wantage Woolies site

6:25pm Friday 26th February 2010 in

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EAGER shoppers queued today as a new store opened in the county’s last empty Woolworths.

The department store, in Market Place, Wantage, had sat vacant since 2008, when the firm went bust and closed down more than 800 stores after 99 years of trading.

Today, Thame-based furniture retailer Cargo greeted its first customers with a glass of fizz as Wantage mayor Patrick O’Leary cut a ribbon to mark the reopening.

It is employing 10 staff.

Cargo trading director Tony Richards said: “It’s been amazing how many people have come up and said this is exactly the kind of thing the town needs.

“We’ve been delighted with the opening, there was a queue before we opened and the tills haven’t stopped ringing. We’ve also launched our new range at the store.

“For us, Wantage is an ideal market town, and we expect Cargo to do very well here.”

With the new store and the opening of a Costa Coffee next Friday at the former Arbery building, it will be the first time since the start of the recession that there have been no vacant shops in the Market Place.

The county’s nine former Woolworths shops have now all been taken over by new stores.