B&M's Youngest Ever Local Hero Helps Open Relocated Wigan store

The relocation of a Home Store in Wigan was made official thanks to the help of the youngest person ever to open a B&M store.

The former Home Store on the Marus Bridge Retail Park has moved to bigger premises in the park, and will now also include a Garden Centre.

As a result of the vastly increased size, an additional 35 jobs were created to bolster staff at the bigger and better store.

Based at the former Homebase, the new store was opened at 9am today with a little help from a special girl.

Lexi-Mae Brown, who is 3 months away from her first birthday, was chosen by B&M colleagues as their Local Hero and helped to make the day a magical one.

Lexi-Mae was not breathing when she was born but was resuscitated 12 minutes after birth and then placed on life support.

She was diagnosed with Trisomy 18, also known as Edwards’ Syndrome, which meant she has three copies of chromosome 18 instead of two.

Determined not to give up easily, Lexi-Mae has beaten all the odds to survive for as long as she has; with half of sufferers dying within two weeks of birth, and only one in five reaching three months.

As well as brightening up everyone’s day, Lexi-Mae and her parents were given £250 worth of B&M vouchers which they will use to support their current fundraising attempts.

Also invited along was Face of the North West, Ciere Woodhead, and a team of volunteers, who bag packed for the first B&M customers to raise further money for the charity.

Debbie Jackson, store manager at B&M Wigan spoke of her excitement at having Lexi-Mae opening the store.

She said, “We’ve been excited to get the doors open and are honoured to have Lexi-Mae officially marking the opening of our bigger store.

“Lexi-Mae is definitely the youngest ever person to have opened a B&M store and we hope that this store opening has gone some way to further highlighting Lexi-Mae’s condition as well as Derian House who have also supported Lexi-Mae and her family through her first year.”