Bunnings Warehouse moves into Greater Manchester

Home improvement and garden retailer Bunnings Warehouse officially opened its doors in the Greater Manchester town of Rochdale today (Wednesday January 3), creating 89 new full- and part-time jobs.

The new store at Sandbrook Park on Edinburgh Way is the biggest Bunnings Warehouse yet, at 110,000sq ft. Offering customers more than 30,000 products, other services include paint mixing, key cutting, timber cutting, a colour wall, kitchen and bathroom display area, special order desk, garden centre, in-store DIY workshops, indoor play area and a café.

Bunnings’ staff have already been busy ahead of today’s store opening, helping with projects in the local area. These include cleaning the play area and revamping the garden for pupils at Sandbrook Community Primary School and fitting a new fireplace and painting at the Carders Court Residential & Nursing Home.

Rochdale complex manager Richard Hammond said: “All our team members have worked really hard to get the store ready for opening and have undertaken many hours of training to make sure we have the expertise to help customers with home or garden projects.”

To celebrate the opening, former professional footballer Paul Parker joined a welcome breakfast for staff. Paul said: “I’ve had a fantastic time celebrating with the team members here at Bunnings this morning. I’m certain that the store will be a great addition to the Rochdale community.”

The store will host two weekends of events on January 6-7 and January 13-14, where customers can enjoy a range of family activities including the famous Bunnings Sausage Sizzle, face-painting, balloon modelling and even join Peppa Pig & George for a story time session.

Bunnings is a leading retailer of home improvement and garden products in Australia and New Zealand. It acquired Homebase for £340 million in February 2016 and plans to invest a further £500 million building a new Bunnings Warehouse business in the UK and Ireland over a five-year plus timeframe.