Waitrose is on the move to Swindon where a major new state of the art store is opening in April in a multi-million development project at Wichelstowe – and Marlborough’s manager Ian Smith is heading it.
He arrived at Marlborough’s High Street supermarket only in April to replace Andy Davies, the admired manager for almost five years, who left for a Waitrose secondment to a corporate project in London.
And up to 20 partners in the town’s supermarket will be joining Ian at the new 39,000 sq ft store, which will be the test bed for new supermarket concepts the John Lewis-owned supermarket chain is developing.
“This is big news,” 40-year-old Ian told Marlborough News Online. “My time here is the shortest I’ve ever had at a store, but the opportunity to launch a major new branch from scratch doesn’t come along very often.
“And one that will create in the region of 200 new jobs as well. It’s going to be a real challenge, a big move ahead for the future.”
The new Waitrose Swindon, already being built, is part of a masterplan to build 5,000 new houses at Wichelstowe, south of the town and two miles from Wroughton. Only 800 have so far been completed.
“So it is going to be a slow build-up,” explained Ian. “It is going to be Waitrose’s latest store design with all of the latest concepts in terms of wines, bakery and a new grazing concept, which means there will be an area where you can pick up food and try it out on your way round the store.”
His experience in retail goes back to his home town of Norwich, where he worked in for Asda aged 16 before taking a degree to become a chartered surveyor, only to discover a lack of opportunities in the recession of 1995.
After moving into retail Ian worked for Asda before moving south to join Waitrose, working his way up to branch manager in the following years with posts in Thatcham, Henley, Newbury and Abingdon before moving to Headington, in Oxford.
His new appointment will, as with Marlborough partners who want to transfer to Swindon because they live in the area, put him a little closer to his home in Uffington, where he and his wife Caroline have just celebrated the birth of their second child, Edie, now eight weeks old and a sister for three-year-old Imogen.
“We haven’t advertised yet for our management partners,” he added. “We’re creating the management team as we speak, the adverts for section managers have gone into our internal system today. I imagine 10 or 20 may want to transfer from Marlborough.
“We don’t know yet what is going to happen here in Marlborough. Andy Davies secondment to London from here is due to end of March. So there is a very neat link between me going to Swindon at the end of February and that ending in March.
“It’s possible Andy could come back but highly unlikely I would say.”
Meanwhile, Ian is continuing to support Marlborough Chamber of Commerce and is helping with the Town Council’s plans to create a Youth Council and is working on Christmas projects.
We are looking to really grow our dot.com online business in the next two or three months,” added Ian. “We are taking on Christmas temps at the moment for our normal Christmas trade, and we will be keeping some of those on and really looking to grow our online operation, both in Swindon and here in Marlborough.
“We take on about 10 additional staff at Christmas, 10 student temps coming back, the ones who work for us in the summer to cover holidays. Then they come back from university at Christmas. Then we shall be taking on 20 to 30 new partners to cover the Christmas trade.”
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