A council is working closely with business leaders to help ensure people visiting Great Yarmouth’s shopping and tourism hotspots has a safe and enjoyable experience.
With high streets preparing to welcome back shoppers as lockdown restrictions are eased, it means that from Monday, June 15, non-essential retailers are permitted to reopen their doors provided they adhere to strict guidelines, including social distancing.
In Great Yarmouth, council and business leaders are working together to help ensure safe and enjoyable visits to the borough’s busiest shopping and tourism hotspots.
The reopening provides a lifeline for businesses starved of funds, and our Love Local campaign is encouraging you to spend within our region and give the independent industry a vital boost.
To assist with the safe reopening of high footfall public spaces in the Yarmouth area, temporary public realm and highways measures to help pedestrians maintain safe social distancing have been introduced in Great Yarmouth town centre, Gorleston High Street and the borough’s busiest tourism areas.
This includes messages temporarily stencil-sprayed onto pavements, signage asking pedestrians to stay on the left side of some footpaths and to seek to stay two metres apart from anyone they do not live with.
On Monday, council staff and councillors, including the council leader, will be on hand in Great Yarmouth town centre, Great Yarmouth seafront, Gorleston High Street and Hemsby’s Beach Road, to greet and guide visitors through the new system and check in with businesses.
In Great Yarmouth town centre, they will be joined by the town centre wardens from the Great Yarmouth Town Centre Partnership.
The team will visit businesses to address any issues or questions, and offer support packs containing an advice leaflet with essential tips for safe operations, safety posters and floor stickers.
These materials have been created by the borough council and Town Centre Partnership, in liaison with the Greater Yarmouth Tourism and Business Improvement area.
Recognising that people might need longer in town than normal due to queuing, shoppers will be able to park for two hours for the price of one hour in the King Street, Market Place and Brewery Plain car parks, as well as Gorleston High Street car park, for a period of three months from June 15.
Great Yarmouth Borough Council leader, Carl Smith, said: “The reopening of retailers across our shopping and tourism hotspots is critical to our phased recovery.
“We actively welcome people to visit and want to ensure they have a safe and enjoyable time.
“As a council, working closely with business leaders, we’re supporting those efforts by making it easier to maintain safe social distancing in the streets, offering free guidance to both visitors and businesses, and using targeted enforcement at premises where necessary.
“Businesses are responsible for ensuring safe operations at their own premises, in line with Government guidance, including managing queues.
“Shoppers and visitors can play their important part by staying alert as they walk around, following the new signs and measures in the streets and inside shops.”
Town centre manager Jonathan Newman, of Great Yarmouth Town Centre Partnership, said: “The reopening of non-essential retail on Monday is great news for the shops that have been prevented from trading for almost three months and I hope that it will soon be followed by the lifting of the restrictions on remaining town centre businesses.
“The Town Centre Partnership very much looks forward to welcoming people back to the town centre to support their local shops.
“However, we should be mindful that the virus has not completely disappeared and that we must all work together by observing the safe distancing measures that will be implemented both inside and outside shops to keep us all safe.”
Free advice and resources for businesses are available to download on the websites of the council and Town Centre Partnership, along with links to sector-specific guidance on operating safely.
Further information including maps is available at www.great-yarmouth.gov.uk/stay-safe
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