More than £3.5 million invested in Co-op stores in Derbyshire

Throughout the year the society has opened ten new food stores and two new funeral booking offices as well as relaunching six funeral homes and nine convenience stores nationwide.

The major development programme has seen investment in Birmingham, Stafford, Nottingham, Cambridgeshire, Norfolk, Suffolk and Leicestershire.

But almost a third of the money spent has been in Derbyshire, where the society has opened new stores in Calow, Mackworth and Belper, while revamping its Ripley store, funeral home in Chaddesden and crematorium in Bretby - spending £3,558,000 in the process and creating over 40 new jobs.

The food stores offer shoppers an expansive range of products and are fitted out with pioneering new energy efficient refrigeration technologies and LED lighting to minimise environmental impact. Many of the stores also includes free water refill stations, phone charging areas, indoor and outdoor seating, collection points for local food banks and customer toilets.

Links also continued to be forged with the local community via inviting local schools to design special pieces of artwork that have now been placed on the inside or outside of the stores.

Angela Allwood, store manager at Openwoodgate, Belper, said: “All of us here at Central England Co-operative food stores across our trading area are proud to be part of such great communities and are looking forward to welcoming all customers, old and new, to come and enjoy our new and revamped food stores.”

All new and revamped funeral homes now offer a vastly superior look and feel for families and include new and improved decoration, flooring, lighting, bathroom facilities and air conditioning.

The funeral homes offer a 24-hour service, seven days a week.

The work throughout 2019 has been part of an ambitious food store and funeral home development programme, with further investment planned during 2020.