YP Letters: Sad to see Poundworld's bargains disappear

I AM very sorry to hear the doors of Normanton-based Poundworld could close for good.

While Woolworths vanished from Britain’s high streets in 2008, anyone who has watched the TV fly-on-the-wall documentaries which followed Poundworld’s founder Chris Edwards as he built the business into a success story, will have seen the reasons why it grew so rapidly to employing 4,000 people nationally before being sold to TPG Capital for £150m in 2015.

The reasons are simple and straightforward. It’s a cliché and a truism – “great retail is about detail” – and Chris Edwards remains a master at the art of fleet-of-foot retailing.

Poundworld offered incredible value to its customers as it brought in goods from overseas which sold alongside other products from manufacturers struggling with debts to meet, and warehouses full of stock they were anxious to shift.

The result? Poundworld’s customers won out massively at the hands of a retailer who had first learnt his craft in Wakefield market alongside his inspirational parents.

I only hope Chris Edwards, or another Yorkshire business person, will emerge to build a retailing operation as successful as Poundworld was.