Mayor of Oakham Coun David Romney will officially open the town's new QD discount store on Thursday, 7 November.

Coun Romney will cut the ceremonial ribbon at 9am to mark the start of trading at the 8,000sqft two-floor store at the former Fords of Oakham premises in Church Street.

And the value retailer will be following up with a day of fun activities on Saturday, 9 November, when there will be free face painting from 10.30am to 3pm, giveaways galore and gift vouchers up for grabs for lucky customers during the day.

QD is employing 21 staff at the new store, including manager Aneta Ozya, who is transferring to Oakham from QD's store in Melton Mowbray, where she has worked since it opened three years ago.

The store will bring to Oakham QD's unique offering of home, toys and gifts, pets, furniture, a fantastic new Christmas range, food and more – all at discounted prices.

Aneta said: "QD is a very friendly family company and my team and I are looking forward to meeting lots of people from Oakham when the store opens on 7 November.

"We promise quality products and discount prices and get fabulous feedback from our customers who love our value guaranteed offering and who discover just how completely different we are from other discount retailers.

"Do come in, have a good look around and say hello!"

Nick Rubins, CEO of the QD Group, added: "With our head office in Nottingham, QD has been a local family-run business for over 30 years and we look forward to continuing this ethos in our new Oakham store.

"Our customers tell us they are really surprised by the great quality of our products, so we can't wait to open our doors and show them our fantastic value, excellent quality and ever-changing spectacular new deals!"

The QD Group is one of the original high street discount retailers and the addition of the Oakham branch brings QD's tally of stores to 27.

The original concept of 'QD Stores' quality discounted retailing was first established back in 1985 by the company's CEO Nick Rubin's father, and current Chairman, Danny Rubins. The aim was to offer customers a wide range of constantly changing, quality products at discounted prices, which led to the stores' name QD – short for Quality Discounts.