North East hospitality reopens its doors as the lockdown is eased again

Businesses in the North East hospitality sector will be putting their indoor plans into action.

From today, they are now able to welcome back customers for a meal or a drink inside as the coronavirus lockdown is eased for the penultimate time.

The rule of six will still apply but Zak Ahmed from Babuls restaurant in Barnard Castle tells us they're just happy to be back:

"It's a massive relief, not just just for the business but for a lot of the staff members as well.

"There's been a lot of uncertainty with people's hours and the future of their jobs. This reopening will help settle things and help ease people's minds."

The County Durham restaurant owner says the past year has been very tough but they're looking forward to the future:

"We've got to be clever, we've got to save money where we can. Unfortunately, we weren't able to access the funding that was available to most businesses. But, we are still here. Hopefully there's a really good and busy summer ahead for us".

He continued:

"My heart goes out to the people who have tried their best but somehow have not made it through.

"It's been extremely difficult for us. It's great news that we are able to reopen but what we have to do now is learn how to operate as a restaurant again."

Today is the latest step for the Government as they continue to move forward with their roadmap out of lockdown - with the final easing of restrictions planned for the 21st June.

But the increase of a new Indian Covid-19 variant has added further complications.

The Prime Minister told the Downing Street press conference on Friday (14th May):

"I do not believe that we need, on the present evidence, to delay our road map and we will proceed with our plan to move to step three in England from Monday.

"But I have to level with you that this new variant could pose a serious disruption to our progress and could make it more difficult to move to step four in June.''