Concern over supermarket renovations

 A Local resident has expressed concern in relation to changes at Mudgee’s Woolworths supermarket, which he says makes ordinarily difficult activities even harder for those with a physical disability.

In an email sent to 2MG, the customer says that he understand works have done away with the customer entrance closest to Byron Place, giving shoppers just one place to enter across from BWS liquor on the Mortimer Street side of the store.

The man claims that without major changes this is both inconvenient and appears to be potentially dangerous.

He says that he believes that most Woolworths shoppers are likely to park in Byron Place, where over a number of years Council has invested large amounts of money and effort to create a primary parking area for the Mudgee CBD, and now those parking in Byron Place we must make their way diagonally across much of the width of the store and down the sloping floor that runs in front of the Woolworths checkout section.

He goes on to say that while still on that sloping floor customers must then navigate a long, narrow bottleneck between the pharmacy and the Woolworths information counter through people coming the opposite direction or waiting at the information counter.

Woolworths Reply.

We put the issue to a Woolworths Spokesperson, who provided the reply below.

We are investing in the Woolworths Mudgee store to create a better shopping experience for our customers and will continue to place a strong emphasis on our fresh food offering and ever more convenient options for customers.

As part of the store renewal we are redesigning the front check-out area including increasing the number of check-outs available for customers.

We believe this will help improve the speed and ease of movement in and out of the store, and reduce waiting times at the check-out.

We will continue to look at ways to make shopping as quick and convenient as possible and trust our customers enjoy the refurbished store when it is completed later this year.

As part of the store renewal the "secondary" entry/exit has been removed to allow for a reconfiguration of the front of the store. These changes are expected to reduce customer queuing times and improve movement in and out of store and include:

Assisted check-outs will increase from 5 to 12;

Express registers removed to create a combined express and service desk service area;

Eight existing fully manned registers remain.

To enable these changes the Mortimer Street entrance will remain the one entry to the store.

Woolworths will be closely monitoring the feedback from our customers during the refurbishment.