With the details of the ‘roadmap out of lockdown’ revealed yesterday by the prime minister, non-essential retail has been given the chance to start planning its reopening. Non-essential retailers can reopen during the second stage of restriction easing, which will happen no earlier than April 12th.
Retailers which don’t sell ‘essential’ items have been closed since January 4th, and were only able to open sporadically throughout last year. If the data let’s stage two go ahead on its planned date, then the high street should once again come to life on Monday April 12th.
Gerald England / Geograph
That includes Primark, who has now confirmed that it will be opening stores on April 12th if the government allows it. A Primark spokesperson told The Sun: “Primark welcomes the news that we have a provisional opening date of April 12th for our stores in England.
“We know our customers will be thrilled and we can’t wait to welcome them back into our stores.
“Our priority will be to do that safely, building on all the lessons we have learnt across our European operations in the past year.” Joining Primark in reopening on the 12th will be John Lewis, Dunelm, H&M and JD Sport, who all plan to let customers enter stores on the first day it is allowed.