Robson McCallister left feeling as though the Waitrose supermarket in Hall Green, Birmingham, “had lost its identity” despite bagging seven items for less than £15
A shopper has described the “ghost town” he faced when he visited a Waitrose in the final hours before it closed for good.
Robson McCallister “felt like I was in a funeral parlour” as he wandered the empty aisles of the supermarket in Hall Green, Birmingham. Regulars begged Waitrose to reconsider when it announced the shop would shut but bosses went ahead with their decision, insisting they couldn’t make the branch “commercially sustainable”.
And by the morning of Monday January 13, the shop was barren and miserable. Robson struggled to find bread, milk and eggs, three supermarket essentials, as the shop was “seriously empty”.
“With a lack of noise and a lot of emptiness, I noticed how quiet everybody was. I spoke to a number of people on the day who expressed sadness and I must admit, I felt like I was in a funeral parlour,” Robson said.
The journalist wrote a piece for Birmingham Live, which had previously reported on the “David and Goliath” battle to save the supermarket from closure. Councillor Timothy Huxtable, of Hall Green South, said: “Waitrose has been at the heart of Hall Green along Stratford Road for 50 years. It was devastating to hear about the proposed closure both for the staff, some of whom have worked there all their lives, and customers.”
But the petition wasn’t enough to convince a U-turn and Waitrose shut the supermarket, which had been part of the community since 1971. Robson found his essentials, and some other items, for £14.23 as he made his last purchases at the supermarket.
Shoppers, he heard, now intend to make the longer trip to Tesco or Aldi, rather than visit the nearest remaining Waitrose, less than three miles away in Solihull, West Midlands.
“As I walked outside, the sign was already down. In a way, that was symbolic because it didn’t feel like I was in a Waitrose supermarket anymore. January 13 might have been the final day of trade, but the supermarket had lost its identity before then,” the reporter continued.
“With barren shelves, blinds down and barely anyone on checkout tills, there was a feeling of emptiness in a location which had been at the heart of a community since 1971… Moving towards the fish counter, the soul had already left the place. There was nobody behind that counter or the nearby meat area and it was empty. I mean seriously empty. To the point where you could have rolled a tumbleweed past the counter because so far, I was in a ghost town.”
Waitrose had said staff – referred to as “partners” at the branch – had redundancy consultations last year. More than 100 are thought to have worked at the shop, which sat on the bust Stratford Road in the south of the city.
