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Lily Owsley MBE, part of the Olympic gold-medal winning women’s hockey team from Rio 2016, has officially opened the new £1m EH Smith ‘Local’ branch in Castle Bromwich, Birmingham.
Lily cutting the now-traditional EH Smith hazard tape with shears.
EH Smith, one of the UK’s leading independent builders’ merchants, has redeveloped a derelict site on Chester Road in the city, as one of its new ‘Local’ branches, offering a wide variety of stock to provide local trades and DIYers with all they require. The new branch has also created eight new jobs for the firm which saw its strongest ever trading year in its 95-year history in 2016.
Hockey ace Lily joined staff, customers and local residents, to cut the now-traditional hazard tape, launching the new branch and topping off a week of events encouraging local trades and DIY enthusiasts to explore the new store and meet EH Smith’s highly knowledgeable staff.
Located just outside the city centre, the new branch stocks around 10,000 products, covering the day-to-day essentials needed on central Birmingham construction and redevelopment sites or to complete small scale DIY projects. Customers can also order other products for next-day delivery either to their site or to collect from the new branch.
Branch Manager Adam Elwell said: “It has been a fantastic week. Local trades have been popping in for the materials they need on local sites and the community seems to have taken us to their hearts already – calling in to pick up all sorts of DIY products and asking advice, which we’re always happy to provide.
“As with our first EH Smith ‘Local’ branch in Harborne, on the other side of the city, the location is perfect. We are in among big brand shops, located on a main road and we’re open from 7.00am.
Lily joined EH Smith for the opening as her home club, the Birmingham University Ladies First team – the only university side to feature in the UK’s women’s hockey premiership league and boasting no less than nine members of the U21 England Hockey team, as well as three members of Team GB – is sponsored by the firm.
The success of the Birmingham University team, said Lily, was helped by the sponsorship of EH Smith, which now sponsors all 10 of the men’s and ladies’ teams at the university.
She said: “EH Smith’s sponsorship helps to keep on top of our game. The investment they make helps us both as a team and as individuals too, maintaining our training and playing regimes at both a club and international level.”
Sean Furlong, Sales Director of EH Smith, said: “Following the success of our Harborne EH Smith Local branch, this is the perfect location for our second ‘Local’ branch. It’s about convenience. While our surrounding branches in Sutton, Shirley and Longbridge continue to be where customers can go for major orders or collections, we also know they value these conveniently located branches near the city centre for collecting essential materials between their larger delivered orders. The fact that it also allows us to provide a valuable service to the local community is even better.”
