Home Bargains Charlton ready to open: Latest addition to Charlton retail parks
Home Bargains are to open a new shop in Charlton tomorrow (27 March) at the former Wickes site on Bugsby’s Way.
The shop will remain open until 10pm from Monday to Saturday.
The store is located in Brocklebank retail park which opened in retail years. It continued the car centric nature of the area with minimal work for active travel from the wider area.
The change of store sees no work to make life easier for those on foot. Bus users face indirect walks as a direct link between the store and a nearby bus was not built.
Recent planning approval in the area at Greenwich Millennium Village again failed to address poor pedestrian links from new homes.
They only pay lip service to our environment in RBG as usual. And home bargains is the kind of store to really ‘upgrade’ the area haha. No chance of a John Lewis here. Junk food outlets and cheap produce. Is this what all the new young local professionals want from their local shopping? Full of environmentally unfriendly plastics, man made fibres which come cheaper and end up in landfill quicker, junk quality with a short term lifespan. So much for sustainability. Better off buying from a charity shop, it’ll last longer too, unlike the lifespan of this replacement to a poundstore (with luck).
Although it’s good that new jobs will be coming to the area, the advertised salary for a store assistant (aged 25+) is capped at £9.22ph. With the London living wage calculated at £10.85ph and the UK living wage at £9.50ph, this doesn’t guarantee any quality of life.
https://www.livingwage.org.uk/calculation
Home Bargains is classed as an essential retailer and was open throughout lockdown, with only full time works receiving a thank you one-off bonus of 2 weeks wages and 1 more paid holiday.
It wasn’t too long ago when we were all utterly dependent on store assistants as front line workers – they went to work to keep the country going while I and many other people had the luxury of staying tucked up safe at home with our laptops. I personally was hoping it would generate a real change in how we see the value of shop workers. It’s sad that we are back to business as usual.