Extended opening hours plain aims to help stores post-lockdown

By

Nigel TAYLOR

Published
Mar 30, 2021

UK store retailers in England have been handed an added trading bonus with the introduction of extended opening hours when stores reopen on 12 April.

Physical stores will be able to open between 7am and 10pm for six days a week to help the retail sector recover from the third national lockdown. 

The government’s communities secretary Robert Jenrick said the move would make it easier for stores to enforce social distancing and would ease transport pressures at peak times around high streets, retail parks and shopping centres. 

Jenrick has told local councils, which control store opening hours, to allow them to trade for 15 hours between Monday and Saturday for at least 10 weeks from 12 April. Sunday opening hours will not be affected. 

The extended hours would be expected to end on 21 June, when all lockdown restrictions are due to come to an end.

Jenrick said the longer hours could have a “temporary impact on local residents” but that this had to be balanced against the “significant public interest in ensuring there is a safe retail environment when non-essential shops reopen”.