POSITIVE signs that local businesses are cautiously emerging from lockdown have begun to spring up across the county.
Within recent days a Lisnaskea shop began welcoming customers back over two months after it temporarily closed in line with official guidance.
Wesley Warrington of Delta House and Home explained that the first steps had been taken towards a return to ‘normal’ trading.
“People are very grateful that we are reopen again. It’s been around nine weeks since we temporarily closed so this step has been well received by customers.
We are partially open and not back up to full trading hours yet.
Within the next couple of weeks we hope to bring our furloughed staff back and open up fully again.”
Staff at the Lisnaskea store have been on furlough leave for a number of weeks. Mr Warrington explained, “Staff have been off quite a while and have probably got a lot of stuff done around home as they hit good weather and really I would say they are ready and keen to come back again.”
While the store is open Mr Warrington and the team at Delta House and Home are very aware that some customers may prefer to shop in other ways, given the current situation.
“We use Facebook as a way of communicating information. We also have our website albeit that we haven’t had staff to fully maintain it lately. There is the telephone as well. It’s been busy as we try to sort out essential customer issues.”
For those customers who visit the store safety precautions are noticeable. “We have set up various restrictions in the shop in terms of movement of people to ensure that there is social distancing. We also have screens up at the tills along with other measures. We’re trying to move forward while keeping customers and staff safe which is paramount.”
Looking forward businesses are hopeful that some form of normal trading will resume, in time when it is deemed safe by officials. Mr Warrington along with fellow businessmen have told the Herald that nobody is really sure what that normality will be.
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