Almost 1000 shoppers hit Falkirk High Street on morning retailers and hospitality reopen

Pubs salons and shops all swung open their doors for the first time in months today, as coronavirus restrictions eased and mainland Scotland moved from Level 4 to Level 3.

Leisure centres, gyms, libraries and museums are also opening their doors once more.

Elaine Grant, manager of Falkirk Delivers, the town’s Business Improvement District (BID), was delighted to see so many shoppers supporting local firms.

She said: “I would like to welcome everyone back to the high street.

“We’re looking forward to seeing everyone coming to our businesses in Falkirk. At the moment, we’ve got just under 1000 people on the high street as at 12pm, so it’s a lot busier this week than it was last week.

“I would ask everybody to show their support to their local town centre businesses. It’s such an important day for everyone to feel that they have the support of our local communities.

“Everyone has been supporting the local shops by using the delivery service that we have but please, if you can this week, take the time, don’t order online, come in and see these local businesses – they’re desperate to see everyone back.”

The support Falkirk Delivers has given to shops, bars and eateries has proved invaluable.

Elaine continued: “Since this lockdown, we’ve delivered over 3500 parcels for the town centre businesses free of charge and we’ve saved over 20,000 miles in non-essential travel.

“Some of the businesses have said that they wouldn’t still be open today if we hadn’t provided that support to them. We anticipate we’ve managed to support the businesses over the last few months to bring in over £100,000 of sales since January.

“Businesses can get in touch through [email protected] or they can get in touch via our Facebook page, it’s a very active Facebook page, or give us a call at our office.”

To coincide with the easing of restrictions, Falkirk Delivers has shared a video of the shops as they prepared for the grand reopening.

To contact the BID team, call 01324 611293.

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