‘We’re back in business’ - retailers’ relief as Calderdale’s high streets begin to re-awaken

From Monday, non-essential retailers were allowed to reopen, provided they could meet the COVID-19 secure guidelines.C

alderdale Council say all our towns recorded a noticeable increase in visitors, with Halifax and Brighouse particularly busy. In general, customers were patient and understanding and any minor issues were resolved quickly and easily.

Tracy Harvey, managing director of Harveys of Halifax, said: “It was great to re-open our doors on Monday after 12 long weeks and fantastic to be able to welcome back our customers.

“Unfortunately, we have not been able to open the entire store to start with – this is just Phase One, we have a lot more work to do yet!

“Obviously, there have been a lot of changes that we have had to make, and I appreciate that it is difficult for some customers who want Harveys to be exactly the same as it was before lockdown – I am feeling that too.

“But we are trying our very best to keep our teams and customers safe and hopefully, as time goes on, things will start to feel a little more normal.

“We are offering our full beauty collections, homewares, gifts and cards, summer fashions, shoes, Wallis, Oasis and Warehouse and we are aiming to have menswear and bedding open by the end of the week.”

Jason Gregg, Centre Manager of Woolshops Shopping Centre said; “After twelve weeks, when most of our retailers have been closed, it has been great to welcome the people of Halifax back to the Woolshops.

“It was pleasing to see customers enjoying the sunny weather and relaxing whilst still being sensible about physical distancing. I took the opportunity to talk to some of our visitors who all seemed glad to be back and were enjoying being able to shop again. 

“Whilst we are heading towards some form of normality, we will continue to encourage physical distancing measures. This may have resulted to some customers queueing before getting into one or two of our stores, however, I was glad to see that in most cases shoppers were able to enter shops in a timely manner. 

“All our retailers have worked really hard to get their stores ready for the reopening and having spoken to each of our tenants, they were all really pleased to be back and glad to see their customers once more. In total, twenty-three of our retailers were open on Monday and we expect several more to return over the coming days.”

Stone Dam Mills in Halifax has been re-open for over two weeks and managing director Neil Rawnsley says they have been busier than they were before lockdown.

“It’s been manic,” he said. “We’re on five floors and it’s extremely easy to social distance. People feel safe in our store, staff respect the two metre distancing, everything gets santised, if they sit on a chair we sanitise it.

“Door handles, lift buttons, all that sort of stuff. We’ve got big sneeze screens between us and the customers with a letterbox opening.

“This is going to be the norm until there’s a vaccine.”

The manager of a Calderdale restaurant says he can’t wait to welcome back customers as normality slowly starts to return across the borough.

The hospitality sector is expected to be one of the last to re-open from lockdown, but Sam Holmes, general manager of True North, at Dean Clough, says the only thing they are missing now is a re-opening date.

He said: “We’re geared up and raring to go again. We’ve spent the last couple of weeks thinking of measures and working things out sensibly to get re-opened safely.

“The things that will be standard we put in place before lockdown like hand sanitisers and disposable menus and condiments.

“Signage is in place, we’ve looked at socially distanced table plans.

“As a business we’ve looked at the numbers because a lot of restaurants will be thinking ‘if we can only do half of our covers it’s not profitable’.

“Hospitality is a tight-margin industry but we think it’s viable for us.

“We’ll have to amend our opening hours because instead of doing 100 covers in one go we’ll maybe have to do 40 and a few later on, so it’ll have to be over a longer time.

“A lot of it will be about reassuring customers that it is safe to go out again. Hopefully everyone’s sick of cooking for themselves!

“I think confidence is the key. We’ve been putting things on Facebook like a 10-point plan of what we’re doing to make sure it’s safe.

“The restaurant space has been completely rearranged so it fits in with social distancing.

“Everything we’ve had guidance on so far, we’ve exceeded. Some of it might be overkill but we’d rather it was too safe and then we relax it further down the line.

“We’re not doing walk-ins, we’re only doing bookings for the first few weeks so we can stay in control of numbers and make sure we know what we’re in for each evening.

“The phrase ‘new normal’ has become a bit overused now but I do think it will be like this for the short to medium term.

“I’m very conscious that we don’t sterilise that atmosphere that makes going out good and makes restaurants what they are, because it’s magic.

“We certainly can’t wait to get back.”

Halifax BID said in a statement: “We are committed to supporting businesses to re-open carefully and safely as trading restrictions are slowly lifted.

“The town centre is steadily becoming open for business again and shops are looking forward to welcoming back their loyal customers.

“We are pleased to see how keen shoppers are to come back to the town centre, supporting their local businesses and to rediscover Halifax.

“It is extremely important, however, that both businesses and customers follow the Government’s advice and guidance in all areas.

“We’ll continue to work closely with businesses, Calderdale Council and other partners to support the safe reopening of our town.

“We also appreciate any feedback from visitors, about how you found the experience and what you enjoyed most about coming back into your town.”

Calderdale Council has been monitoring footfall and the effectiveness of the additional safety measures introduced in towns across the borough.

Community safety warden patrols will continue all week and feedback from businesses and customers will be reviewed. All the changes are temporary and the effectiveness of the measures will be regularly assessed.F

urther schemes will follow where appropriate as the COVID-19 recovery process continues.
Calderdale Council’s Cabinet Member for Regeneration and Resources, Coun Jane Scullion, said: “In many of our town centres the only space available for us to expand pavements and allow for social distancing is the on-street parking bays. We’ve had to introduce these temporary changes quickly and we acknowledge that there may be some teething problems.

“I’d like to thank people for their patience and for adjusting to these changes quickly. We’ll continue to work with local residents and businesses and will adapt and change the schemes as necessary.  We’ll also look to make these temporary measures more aesthetically pleasing, for example, by using planters.”

Many shoppers said being the town centre gave them a sense of normality after spending nearly three months in lockdown.
But the overall consensus was business was definitely back in Calderdale as shops and stores opened to the public for the first time since closing due to the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic.
Lorna Morris, 74, said: “It’s nice to socialise again.
“There’s a lot of queuing in the sun, and unfortunately most of the toilets aren’t open to the public, but it’s been very positive.”

Abdul Sadiq, 41, said: “This seems like a step forward back into normality.

“There’s only so much you can do at home and I think everyone will appreciate the smaller things in life, such as walking into their favourite shops without restrictions.”