Businesses across South Holland are temporary closing or adapting after the government ordered the entire country to stay at home on Monday night.
Many shops and businesses had already temporary closed ahead of Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s announcement in which he ordered all “non-essential” shops to shut.
Supermarkets, newsagents and chemists are to remain open.
It followed Friday night’s ordered closures of all pubs, clubs, restaurants and cafes.
On a usually bustling Tuesday lunch time a few hardy store holders were keeping up the hundreds of years old tradition of a town market amid the rows of shuttered up shops.
But they were mainly left talking to themselves.
Michael Booth’s fruit and vegetable stall has been a fixture of Spalding’s market for 33 years.
“I’ve never seen it like this before,” he said from the stall on Tuesday. “We’d get more people buying on Christmas Day.
“I don’t think I’ll be trading again until this is all over.”
Shops that were open, including Boots, had policies of limiting the number of people in at any one time.
Elsewhere businesses have been looking at how to take advantage of the government’s offer of paying them ‘furlough’ workers, offering them leave for 80 per cent pay.
There have been calls over a lack of information and help from the government for the self-employed.
The situation has left others in desperate need of more staff.
Both healthcare and the food production industries are looking for workers, including Addo and Lincolnshire Co-op.
