The owner of a town centre music shop which has been closed throughout lockdown has said it will not be able to reopen with other non-essential businesses on Monday June 15.

Rebecca Shaw who owns The Music Hut in North Walsham said she would not be able to reopen the shop next Monday due to family commitments, with the shop’s long term future uncertain.

Ms Shaw said the shop would be able to survive until September thanks to a government grant and online and telephone orders, however she said she would have to make a decision about the shop’s future when the time comes.

She said: “I’m in a position where my partner works full-time at Drury’s and I’m looking after the kids, so when the shops are able to reopen, I’ll still be looking after the kids and I can’t really make it very COVID secure as they would have to come to the shop with me.

“Luckily because of the grant that came through we can sort of ride it out until September, luckily our landlord has said we can stop paying rent until September. We’re going to have to keep looking at it but by September if the kids go back to school then I’ll be able to reopen with lesser opening times but we’ll just have to see where it goes.

“Either it’s all going to go really well or we’re going to have to make the choice to wind-up the business, obviously we’ll have missed the tourist trade by that time and it just depends how the economy kicks in. I don’t know whether we’ll survive it.”

Ms Shaw added: “If the grant hadn’t come in then we would’ve definitely had to close, absolutely no question about it but it’s really helped us to keep going because I think without that no way would we reopen.”

While it is closed the shop is still taking telephone orders and selling items on its eBay page.