Overview

Post code. WS10 9SF. It’s been many years since we last bothered with IKEA (photo 1) so felt it time to check out this store in Wednesbury, West Midlands, and a pleasant experience awaited us. This large store stands near to junction 9 of the M6 in the West Midlands, and easy to get to. IKEA purchased land from the former F.H.Lloyd steel plant in 1988, but work first involved in preparing the land, which meant mineshafts having to be filled in and secured, then decontamination work had to be completed before work could start on the actual building itself, which then opened its doors at Wednesbury in January 1991. We found plenty of disabled bays available, close to main entrance (photo 2) with a large lift just inside, ready to take us up to level 1 to enter the restaurant (photo 3) Having not been for so many years we found the system rather confusing, as it’s all buffet style, queue here, queue there, queue to pay, queue to collect drinks in a long queue which seemed to be queuing for everything, but people and staff were very willing to tell us what to do and were to queue. After collecting drinks from the queue, the sweet cinnamon bun ordered was not quite ready, so we sat down before again queuing to get the bun, so that while enjoying the break it gave us a chance to sit and watch the queue getting bigger with each minute. Then shopping itself was quite pleasant, it’s very easy to move around, we could take the wheelchair quite easily to see whatever we wanted to see, and following the marked out route by following arrow directions along wide pathways really helped us to move on (photo 4). We were both pleasantly surprised about the choice on display, all rather modern looking, perhaps to modern for 80 year olds (or those close to it) and quality seemed to have improved over the years, BLACK being the in-thing at the moment (photo 5) and felt that if you were looking for something you would find something that would appeal, especially to the younger age groups. But we did not think it cheap however, so be ready to part with serious money. Actually, we really enjoyed our visit, and surprised to note we had spent two hours just wondering around in ever increasing circles, just following arrows from one section to the next, that never seemed to end, even after we thought we had seen it all, but the next corner showed us into another area, and so it went on, until we felt it our cue to depart the store and go and join the queue ahead going to get their cars, so we left, and then joined the queue of cars queuing to get out onto the main road.

Transport & Parking

We drove up to junction 9 exit for Wednesbury on the M6, Sat NAV WS10 9 SF. It was an easy enough drive, and we arrived at a large car park with many disabled bays very close to the entrance (photo 2) but it filled up very quickly after its opening time of 10.00.

Access

From the disabled bays, quite close to entrance, we filed in with other excited shoppers, and the whole store is very wheelchair friendly, with plenty of space to move around, without feeling we were a nuisance to anyone, and could move around the store quite easily.

Toilets

Staff

All were very kind and helpful to us, very supportative.

Photos