Sadness as Blunts shoe shop closes after 40 years
A shoe shop which has been at the centre of a community for more than 40 years has closed due to financial difficulties.
Blunts has been a staple store for the past four decades, but its manager has confirmed that it shut last week due to overheads and lack of footfall, with the loss of all but one of its staff.
Staff at the shop on Bearwood Road in Smethwick gathered last Wednesday to pack up the remaining stock, leaving empty shelves behind.
Among them and expressing her devastation at the closure, was manager Virginia Bourne.
She said: "It is a shame because we have built up a good relationship with our customers. It is very, very sad, because we have been here for 40 years.
"Some of the staff have been here for 20 years, and have always given a really good service. It is heartbreaking.
"We have had customers coming in, who have been coming here for years and are so sad that we are going. We have some very loyal customers."
Asked the reasons behind the closure, Mrs Bourne added: "It is the overheads but also the footfall. We have a lot of empty shops around us so people aren't really coming down here to shop."
She confirmed that although the shutters have come down on the Bearwood branch, its other outlets in Stourbridge, Kidderminster, Bridgnorth, Penn and Willenhall are not at risk of closure, and are all performing well.
All but one of the store's seven employees are losing their jobs, with Mrs Bourne the exception who will be continuing to work at the other branches.
The unit has been a shoe shop for decades, as revealed in a photo of the previous occupant, J.A. Rooker, shared by Sue Edwards on Bearwood's community Facebook page.
She said: "It was my grandparents' home sometime in the 1930s. The shop was in the family for 50 years before being sold to Blunts."
