Poundland is about to open its new store in The Spires shopping centre -- at 9am on Saturday 28 January -- an event for some Barnet shoppers that will be up there with the opening of a branch of the fashion chain H&M in 2017.

Attracting – and retaining -- well-known High Street names to Barnet’s town centre has been an uphill struggle in recent years.

The Poundland shop, filling two empty units in The Spires, will have a staff of 18 full and part-time posts.

Work to fit out the new store has been underway for some days.

Barnet’s Poundland will offer the expanded range now available across half of group’s network of over 850 stores in the UK and the Republic of Ireland.

In addition to the traditional items associated with Poundland, it will sell chilled and frozen food, from desserts and ready meal and pies and from cooked meats to frozen vegetables.

Poundland Barnet will also offer a selection from its Pep clothing range and Pep homeware items as well as regular items such as health and beauty products, household, gardening, DIY, pet, stationery, books, DVDs, and toys.

Since opening its first store in Burton-upon-Trent in 1990, Poundland has built up a network of stores that serves seven million customers every week and has a staff around 18,000.

Poundland is part of the Pepco group which has around 4,000 stories in 19 countries, including the UK, Ireland, Spain, and others across Central and Eastern Europe.