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Member view on roadmap ‘balance’ radio interview.

It’s amazing what our members get up to when they can’t open their businesses.

Changing Grooms Hair & Beauty Spa & Wessex Trichology Clinic owner Nicki Cattel gives her take on our current situation.
What do businesses think of the PM’s roadmap? Weymouth salon owner Nicki Cattel says she’s worried about other salons having to wait until April.

Nicki Cattel owns Changing Grooms Hair and Beauty Spa in Weymouth. She has refitted her salon to make room for social distancing and is frustrated she still can’t reopen.

She’s warning that other businesses like hers won’t be able to cope with another month and a half:

“For myself, luckily I’ve always been very good with money and I’ve always saved, so I should be safe.

“I know there’s going to be a lot of businesses out there that aren’t. I know some self-employed hairdressers that have fallen through the loophole and they’re not getting any support at all.”

“I’ve had a full salon refit to make it COVID-safe even though I can’t even open, so that does seem a bit of a waste of money but it does look lovely.

“I’m sure it will have a good purpose and our clients will appreciate the comfort when we can reopen again.”

Craig Oakes is the President of Weymouth Chamber of Commerce. He said:

“By being a little bit more cautious and stepping back and thinking about things, rather than just running in to things and getting things done because we feel we need to get things open… well we’ve then had lockdown straight after.”

“We’ve said from the start that you need to have a long term strategic plan and hopefully this will mean that we don’t have a further lockdown.

“I think they’re being a bit more cautious now about how they do things and yes it will be a financial problem, I can imagine, and I think it’s got to be carefully balanced really.”

Paul Appleby
Author: Paul Appleby