A new £4.5 million Home Bargains store has opened next to one of Swindon’s busiest roads.

The former TK Maxx off Great Western Way has been completely stripped bare and rebuilt from scratch over the last 12 months.

The store, which is now a 40,042 sq ft Home Bargains with a café and garden centre, welcomed its first customers at 8am on Saturday.

Maureen Hughes and her granddaughter Oakley, who had booked time off work to visit the shop, were among the first in line.

Swindon Advertiser: The queue at the new Home Bargains moments before it openedThe queue at the new Home Bargains moments before it opened (Image: Newsquest)

Maureen said: “I come along this road quite often and have been watching and thinking ‘what’s going to be in there?’

“We shop a lot at Home Bargains so, once we knew what the shop was going to be, we have been dying for this to open.

“It’s quite exciting. We normally go for a coffee somewhere after shopping but there’s already a café in here too, which is great.”

The new store is creating 110 new jobs in the community. In total, it will employ 130 team members, including 20 members of staff and management who will be transferring from local stores.

Several employees posed for photos outside the latest addition to the budget brand and the car park soon filled up with more eager shoppers.

Signs around the boundary of Great Western Way that have advertised the opening date for months now announce that the store is now open.

 

Yulia Garbatiuk, the new store's manager, is leading the team after working for the business for five years.

She started as a team member in the Swindon Barnfield Road store before working her way up through the business at a variety of shops in the area including Barnfield, Swindon, Wantage, Faringdon, Newbury and Oxford.

Yulia’s last role was as the store manager in Faringdon, which was recently chosen as the area’s store of the year.

Before the doors opened, Cher Smith from Swindon Food Collective received a £2,000 cheque to help support her organisation, which involves more than 100 volunteers and some paid admin staff feeding 11,000 people from 11 distribution centres around the town.

She added: “Grants like this really help us because we spend nearly £2,000 a month on food.

“Some of the stigma of people asking us for help has been removed. It’s a sign of the times.

"More people are coming forward more often, particularly working people, pensioners, and disabled people.

“It’s Swindon people giving to Swindon people.”

For more information, visit www.swindonfoodcollective.org