City of Wolverhampton Council continues to work with city partners, including the Wolverhampton Business Improvement District (BID), Bilston BID and police as well as retailers across five key shopping areas: city centre, Bilston, Wednesfield, Tettenhall and Dudley Road.
A central one-way walking route remains in place in the city centre’s shopping core, Dudley Street, with pedestrians encouraged to keep left and stay apart.
New street signage will also provide guidance for visitors across all five of the key shopping areas.
Stewards and BID ambassadors will be in place in the city centre to assist shop owners - especially with deliveries - and visitors, and the council’s environmental health and trading standards team continue to support businesses across Wolverhampton.
A Christmas parking offer for shoppers has also been put in place, with the School Street, Peel Street, Fold Street and market car parks, now free to use after 3pm Monday to Friday, up to and including Thursday, December 24.
The council’s commercial regulation team has Covid Support Advisors out across Wolverhampton visiting businesses and premises to ensure they have the appropriate Covid measures in place and, where they do, ‘Covid Compliant’ window stickers or posters are being issued for the premises to display.
The council has been working closely with businesses and premises to provide advice and support the implementation of the Covid-secure measures to improve the safety of customers and employees.
To further support businesses Wolverhampton’s new Shop Local website is live, with residents being urged to shop local in the run up to Christmas to support city businesses and protect jobs.
More than 265 shops and businesses are already showcasing their goods and services on the website, with more signing up daily. It includes traders from Wolverhampton’s three markets – city centre, Bilston and Wednesfield – which are now fully open and operating under strict Covid-19 rules, offering a huge variety of products and gifts.
All measures will be monitored, and additional measures or alterations will be made where required (some activities will be funded by the Reopening High Streets Safely Fund from the Cities and Local Growth Unit (CLGU) grant provided by the European Regional Development Fund.
City of Wolverhampton Council Cabinet Member for City Environment, Councillor Steve Evans, said: “A lot of hard work and planning by the council and its partners is going into making the reopening of Wolverhampton’s non-essential shops as safe and smooth as possible for everyone as we get used to the new Tier 3 restrictions.
“The most important thing is that businesses and visitors to these areas stick firmly to the Government’s social distancing and hygiene guidelines.
“These businesses need our support now more than ever and, working alongside our city partners, we have implemented a number of support measures and initiatives to help them trade within the Covid-19 regulations.”
The latest Covid-19 guidance for businesses and shoppers can be found at wolverhampton.gov.uk/coronavirus.
