Commons Speaker and Lancashire MP makes visit to brand new food store to mark its launch

Posted by james brindle | Published: 18/05/2022

The team at Central England Co-op’s brand new food store in Clayton-le-Woods were delighted to welcome the Rt Hon Sir Lindsay Hoyle MP for a special visit on launch day.

The Chorley MP, who has also served as the Speaker of the House of Commons since 2019, took time out from his busy schedule to wish the team at the new Central England Co-op in Wigan Road all the best and take a tour around the store.

Sir Lindsay was particularly impressed with the store’s local ranges, including the famous Chorley cakes, and spoke with Wigan Road Store Manager Saj Bax about how the opening day was going.

Saj said: “We were so excited to open our doors to our brilliant local community in Clayton-le-Woods and have been overwhelmed by the positive response we have received from our new customers and members.

“It was great to welcome Sir Lindsay Hoyle MP on our opening day to take a look around and say hello to our new team. He was really friendly and genuinely interested about the store and it was great to show him everything we have on offer for the community.”

The Wigan Road Central England Co-op is now open and offers shoppers an expansive range of products and features such as self-service checkouts, an extensive food to go section including hot food, Insomnia Coffee and Tango Ice Blast, a customer car park, free cash machine and customer toilets with baby changing facilities.

The store is open from 7am to 10pm, Monday to Sunday.

Notes to editors

About Central England Co-operative

Central England Co-operative is one of the largest independent retail co-operative societies in the UK with interests in food, funeral, floral and property investment.

Owned by hundreds of thousands of members, its over 8,000 colleagues serve customers across 400 plus trading sites in 20 counties in the East and West Midlands, Yorkshire, Suffolk, Norfolk, Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire.

Its purpose is to inspire communities to create a sustainable Society for all.

It actively campaigns for the Government to increase sentencing for violent attacks on retail workers and works with FareShare Midlands and hundreds of food banks, generating enough food donations to create over 2.1 million meals for people in need.

The Society embraces inclusivity and equality and is a signed-up member to the Business in the Community (BITC) Race at Work Charter, while it is also fully committed to addressing the impact of climate change and is on track to be Carbon Neutral by 2030. 

It invests a percentage of its trading profit into local communities through its Community Dividend Fund scheme which has seen over £175,000 shared out between 116 good causes over the past 12 months.

Central England Co-op was named Leading Co-op of the Year by Co-operatives UK in 2021.

Press office contacts: Rob Smyth and James Brindle

Contact details: www.centralengland.coop/press-and-media