2nd February 2012

DORCHESTER: The Range comes to town

Work has started on a Range store for Dorchester with the company now advertising vacancies on its website.

Scaffolding recently went up on Dorchester’s former Focus store at the West Station as The Range confirmed they would be opening for business on March 9th.

The building has been empty since early summer when the Focus chain went into liquidation.

Phil Gordon from the Dorchester BID group welcome the news. He said he hoped that if former Focus staff had not found other work they might find positions in their old store, with new owners.

A previous attempt to re-open the building under the B&Q brand failed when it was ruled that it would give the company too much of a monopoly in the area – much to the annoyance of local people who now have to drive to Weymouth to use a larger DIY store.

West Dorset planners have agreed to the reopening of the store for the sale of bulky goods, furniture, textiles, carpets, electrical goods, hardware, DIY, garden and pet products, vehicle accessories and cycles, camping and leisure goods, toys, hobbies and office equipment. The type of goods to be sold is greater than the old Focus store used to sell.

The nearest Range store to Dorchester is currently in Poole.

The Range group started in Plymouth in the 1980s and boasts more than 65,000 products across 16 departments including; DIY, Homewares, Furniture, Lighting, Arts & Crafts and Garden.

The Range concept is to offer mid-price home, leisure and garden products, drawing together everything that could be needed for the stylish home at affordable prices.

The Range has also diversified into property; manufacturing, waste management, shop-fitting, hearing aids, dry cleaning and has recently secured a place on the Sunday Times HSBC Top Track 250 league table of Britain’s leading mid-market private companies 2011.

DORCHESTER: The Range comes to town

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