Executive needs to 'step up' and provide more funding if reopening is pushed back again.
The new date for soft play areas to reopen is the 14th of September but owners worry it will be pushed back again.
Last updated 4th Sep 2020
The owners of a soft play area in Belfast are calling on the government to step up if they push the reopening date back again.
Soft Play areas have been given the green light by the Executive to reopen on the 14th of September.
The Executive previously gave an indicative re-open date of the 7th of August, but just days before the given date, it was pushed back.
It was agreed by the Executive yesterday evening (Thursday) that the new indicative reopening date for the sector is the 14th of September.
The First Minister Arlene Foster spoke outside Stormont last night (Thursday) following the announcement, she said:
“The soft play area has been around for quite a while, so were very pleased to give those institutions and indicative date so that they can go back to business again”
Alan Crockard and his wife Jo-anne own The Wee Play House in the Shankill area.
They opened their business on December 1st last year and had to close four months after opening because of Coronavirus.
Mr Crockard said he and his wife were ready to open their business on August 7th and that it was frustrating to see similar businesses like inflatable parks open, he said:
“The announcement has to be welcomed, but we’ve been here done it before, and we just hope that the Executive follows through with this date.
“We’ll certainly have to do a bit more prep work going forwards towards the new date, we had everything in place the last time round.
“At the end of the day the Executive really needs to see the bigger picture and what they’re doing to people’s day-to-day livelihoods”
“Being a new business we opened our doors on the 1st of December 2019, and we were open for four months until mid-March until we were told, everybody was, that we had to close the doors.
“We qualified for the ten-thousand-pound grant from the Government, which was brilliant, we needed that, but it doesn’t last forever.
“At the end of the day it went ahead and covered some overheads and covered rent ectara, so we do need this date on the 14th of September to go ahead.
“We’re not on our knees at this point by any means but we need to start generating an income in order to keep the business going.
“I do believe the date should have been a lot sooner than what we have received, we did have a date last time of the 7th of August and we were sitting on the Thursday evening before that and we were told sorry you cannot open.
“It was very frustrating when we as a soft play centre, similar I believe to the inflatable parks that are open and generating income at the present time that we were not allowed to open.”
He said if the business can’t open on the 14th the government will have to supply another funding package to help support the sector, he added:
“We have a family of our own at home, we have mortgages to pay, Christmas is coming.
“The bills continue in our own day-to-day lives never mind what the business has to pay out.
“We also have very loyal staff, yes at the present time their furloughed but that’s soon going to come to an end.
“They rely on their wages coming in order to pay their bills and put food on the table.
“At the end of the day the Executive really needs to see the bigger picture and what they’re doing to people’s day-to-day livelihoods”