Covid in Wales: Hairdressers 'excited' over chance to reopen

Non-essential retailers say they feel excited and apprehensive about the chance of reopening in Wales next week.

First Minister Mark Drakeford has said there could be "opportunities" for likes of hairdressers to reopen on Monday.

Only the likes of supermarkets and pharmacies can currently open but a review of lockdown measures in Wales is due on Friday.

All non-essential shops went into lockdown on 20 December.

Hairdressers and other non-essential retailers in England are not due to reopen until 12 April.

Sallylouise Jones, who owns antique shop Pretty Vintage Things in Llantwit Major, Vale of Glamorgan, said she was feeling "a mixture of excitement and apprehension".

She said: "It is paramount we get up and running and get people in the door.

"I have been getting the shop ready but it is really hard not having a definite date.

She said her main concern was working with short notice.

"Though I understand the reasons why, [the Welsh Government] have had to watch the figures," Ms Jones added.

She said with the virus still not under control she was "slightly nervous" about having customers in her shop again.

"I've been reading about whether they're going to do the five-mile rule," she said.

"I'd probably be happier with that to start off with, because otherwise you worry about people coming from further away."

Sarah Bruton, who owns Captiva Spa and Lounge in Caerphilly, says it is split equally between a hair and beauty business.

She is hoping to bring about half of her 16 staff back off furlough, on the hairdressing side.

She said: "We're really excited about being able to open next Monday.

"We're cautious about what this means in reality because we have had a lot of false dawns with the Welsh Government.

"We really don't know if any of the business can open or half of it.

"Probably we're not going to know until Friday if we can open on Monday and that's zero business days to prepare."

Despite the uncertainty, the salon has been making preparations to reopen.

"We've purchased stock, we've done a bit of training with our teams," Ms Bruton said.

"We currently have a waiting list of 350 clients who are expecting us to contact them on Friday."

Now she has to play a waiting game and see if the preparations will be worth it.

"There's a bit of risk in purchasing stock which we have now had to commit to. We lost thousands of pounds at Christmas when we had to close at short notice," she explained.

"Things like hair colour and beauty products have a very short shelf life."

And if the door stays closed on Monday?

"I don't know where we'd be at that point - would [reopening] be sometime within the next three-week period or would we have to wait for the next review?," she asked.

CBI (Confederation of British Industry) Wales said the Welsh Government's approach of staggered reopening of sectors had the backing of the business community.

Director Ian Price, said: "With transmission rates heading in the right direction and incredible progress being made on vaccination, non-essential retailers and close contact service providers will be looking to the potential prospect of a mid-March reopening with huge sense of relief.

"As jobs and livelihoods still hang in the balance, the prospect of bringing some economic activity back to struggling high streets and city centres represents a real step in the right direction for communities and businesses across Wales."

But he urged caution, in order to avoid a "sharp rise" in Covid transmission rates.

"Wales can't afford for... the country to return to a cycle of damaging restrictions," said

"Firms will be looking to work with government to ensure the process happens as safely and effectively as possible."

A Welsh Government spokesperson said: "In the last few months, we have made huge strides in rolling out vaccines, but faced with new variants of coronavirus, we cannot provide as much certainty and predictability as we would like.

"We cannot move directly and fully into alert level three in one step. We will need to get there in gradual steps, assessing the impact as we go along."