A SECURITY operation in the Wattlebridge area has ended after a device along with live ammunition was found at a bus shelter and declared a hoax by police.
Last Tuesday motorists were asked to use alternative routes after PSNI and Gardai closed the Wattlebridge Road and Cavan Road in a cross border investigation.
Speaking on the impact this had on local businesses, Ciaran McBride from GTS Tyres and repair shop on the Cavan Road spoke to the Herald of his frustrations.
“In the current climate things aren’t easy and we lost a week of trade on top of it. We’re in business over 30 years and have never before had to close our doors for this reason. We thought times had moved on, these days should be behind us not in front of us.
“It’s very frustrating that our employees could not get to their place of work and customers could not gain access to us when we are providing an essential service during this pandemic.
“I had customers waiting, we couldn’t get supplies in or specific tyres that we had ordered in. We couldn’t even get post, all of last weeks post only came in today.
The stress of diverting work from last week onto this week has just been a total disaster.
“It just seemed like everything was dragged out for so long since the security alert started on January 13 and we were definitely piggy in the middle.
“Things like this doesn’t do any good for the area, 85% to 95% of our business would be cross border.
“You have to encourage and reassure people that there is no issue with trading due to Brexit and now there is the added fear of security alerts.
“It takes very little to discourage them and you can lose customers very easily, no matter how established your business is.”
To read more on this story see this week’s Fermanagh Herald. Can’t get to the shop to collect your copy? No problem! You can download a copy straight to your device by following this link https://bit.ly/3gOl8G0
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