// Wales’ non-essential retail reopens from today as 17-day firebreak lockdown comes to an end
// Other high street businesses like gyms, pubs, cafes and hairdressers also allowed to reopen
// Supermarkets can also sell non-essential items again
Wales’ non-essential retailers have been allowed to reopen from today after the country’s 17-day firebreak lockdown came to an end.
Supermarkets can again sell non-essential items while gyms, hairdressers and places of worship are also allowed to reopen.
As part of new restrictions, groups of up to four people can now meet up in cafes, pubs and restaurants, while people will only be allowed to meet up inside homes with members of one other household if they have joined into a “bubble”.
READ MORE:
- Retail groups call for non-essential items rule to be relaxed in Wales
- Welsh Gov’t to “learn lessons” of communicating lockdown shopping rules
- Grocers in Wales told to only sell “essential” items as it enters 2nd lockdown
A 10pm curfew on alcohol sales will carry over from before the firebreak lockdown, with people required to prove their home address in bars following concerns people in England could flout its own lockdown and travel to Wales for a drink.
There are no restrictions on travel within Wales, but people will not be allowed to travel outside of the country unless for a reasonable excuse such as work.
Welsh First Minister Mark Drakeford previously said the end of Wales’ lockdown just four days after England entered into a month-long lockdown would create the hardest border between the countries for “several centuries”.
The Welsh Government also faced calls to extend restrictions in areas of the south Wales valleys including Merthyr Tydfil – which became the worst-hit area of the UK last week with 741 cases per 100,000 people – as high levels of transmissions continue to rise.
with PA Wires
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