Flooring not listed as 'essential' retailing
November 3, 2020
UPDATED 18:00 Tuesday • The new national lockdown is set to force flooring stores in England to close as exemptions for essential retailers in the Government's list just published do not offer the same "wiggle room" as the Spring lockdown.
The Government has announced the closure of non-essential retail from Thursday, November 3. It was hoped "home improvements" might make it on to the essential list, or that the "homewares" exemption that proved an opportunity for flooring stores to stay open in March–May would reappear.
But the official list published with the latest Covid-19 legislation only offers exclusion to "hardware" stores, along with the expected categories of food, pharmacies, convenience stores, etc.
Storage and distribution units attached to retailers can stay open however which allows retailers to receive and send out flooring for delivery – and installations are able to go ahead in consumers' homes as tradespeople are allowed to work in consumers' homes with appropriate social distancing.
Click-and-collect retail services are allowed, which gives scope for video appointments, internet and telephone orders. Face-to-face appointments would not appear to be provided for within the new restrictions but this is less clear...
Salesmen are not really tradespeople (like fitters, plumbers, electricioans) so don't get access to customers' homes. Theoretically, a sales appointment could take place outside
a store as the new rules state individuals can meet one person from outside their household in an outside public space (but not a customer's garden).
The retail lockdown in Wales which started on October 23 specifically required furnishing stores to close. The Welsh government still plans to end their lockdown on November 9. In Scotland and Northern Ireland, retail outlets remains generally open at present.
Manufacturing businesses are being encouraged to remain open.
The prime minister said he expects the lockdown to last until 2 December, after which England's regional tiered system would be reintroduced.
The timing could hardly be worst for the flooring sector as retailers enter the busiest month of the peak season for sales and installations – with the additional demands of backlog and ehnanced consumer investment in their homes.
Helen Dickinson, Chief Executive of the British Retail Consortium, described the Government announcement as a "nightmare before Christmas."
"It will cause untold damage to the high street in the run up to Christmas, cost countless jobs, and permanently set back the recovery of the wider economy," she said. “A recent Sage paper reported that closing ‘non-essential’ retail would have minimal impact on the transmission of Covid.
“The announced closure will have a significant economic impact on the viability of thousands of shops and hundreds of thousands of jobs across the country."
The extension of the furlough scheme
is the only relief amid the gloom. The original scheme is to be extended as is until at least December 2 with the state putting in the full 80%, with the employer only covering pension and national insurance contributions. To be eligible for this extension, employees must have been on the payroll by 30 October 2020, but they don't need to have been furloughed before.
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