More than 100 Newport businesses open again as high street fights back
More than 100 businesses in one town have now reopened following the easing of the lockdown, a councillor has found.
Town and borough councillor Tim Nelson has been surveying hundreds of traders of all kinds in Newport. He is part of the town council's Choose Newport campaign to help improve the fortunes of the town's High Street amid the coronavirus pandemic.
As of this week, he found that at least 102 businesses are now open for business while a further 29 are trading in some capacity.
Cllr Nelson said: "I've tried to capture most entities in Newport that have a street presence, excluding education not on the High Street.
"Of those not yet trading, one identifies fairly readily 52, drawn from public buildings (five), pubs (eight), charity (five), hair (16), beauty (nine) and Health (nine).
"Clearly, hospitality and the 'hands on' health, beauty and grooming sector is still stalled. Let us hope for good news on distancing, and/or other mitigation measures for virus transmission.
"What's changed? When the survey was done in May, 50 were 'open' and another 50 gave notice they were trading in some format. Everyone else was shut (out of around 220 'visible' entities for the town, and 200-odd for the High Street, excluding the indoor market, which has been trading well throughout).
"Fifty-eight High Street businesses now display the 'Choose Newport' recovery marketing logo, and this is well over half who could. We will work on the rest."
