Since lockdown, only a smattering of independents such as Rieneta, Farm W5 and Beehive, stayed open to service the working community with takeaway food and coffee.
However, Ealing Town Centre has become noticeably busier over the last few weeks as commercial and retail businesses prepare for the easing of lockdown.

Food & beverage outlets are leading the way, but the nursery schools and commercial businesses have been getting ready to resume operations by June 1st.
Joining Pret, we welcome the roll-out of Artisan, Curious Roo, Riding Wine, Gails, Bakers of Ealing, Wasabi, and Starbucks on the 28th to name just a few, but be prepared, the taste maybe as you remember it, but the experience will be very different!

Many national retail chains have announced they will do a gradual roll-out of store openings so they can test social distancing and learn what they need to put in place, the message is a slow, safe recovery.

The new guidelines, social distancing and queuing are going to take patience and understanding but hopefully worth the wait as we adapt to maintain some of our 'old normal' routines.
Make It Ealing have put together a PDF quick guide to getting your business ready with links to the Health and Safety Executive and government guidelines.

Remember, an employer must protect the health, safety and welfare of their employees and other people who might be affected by their business, and they must do whatever is reasonably practicable to achieve this.

Retail sites will need to take a practical eye to their shop layout and work out how many people can safely, and practically, shop in the store at any one time.

It is estimated that each customer will need the equivalent of 4sqm to satisfy safe distancing. You can work out the maximum 4sqm occupancy of your business by using the example below.

Multiply the floor-length by the floor width to get the total floor space then divide by 4. The result will give you the total number of people you can safely have in store using the 4sqm safe distancing guide. 

For example; The customer area of the shop is 6 metres long and 12 metres wide

  6m x 12m = 72sqm

  72sqm / 4sqm = 18 blocks of 4sqm = 18 people Maximum Occupancy.

It is vital to communicate the requirements of social distancing to customers and to ensure that they are queuing where you have assessed it is safe to queue.

It can also be helpful to post notices to customers before they enter the store, on windows, and entry doors, reminding them that the purpose of social distancing is to keep them safe.

Maybe we should create some town centre 'I Spy' games while people are queuing to alleviate the boredom! 

As lockdown lifts, demand for travel will increase. TfL will need to run public transport at much lower levels of capacity than pre-COVID-19 to continue to provide space for social distancing.

Travel by car is likely to become more attractive (initially when congestion levels are low but this may continue if people are anxious about using public transport)

London's Streetspace Plan (PDF download) aims to make it easy and safe for Londoners to choose to walk or cycle as an alternative to using cars or public transport. It has been developed to help respond to the immediate Public Health imperatives around:

   a) enabling social distancing on the street;

   b) encouraging Londoners to avoid unnecessary use of public transport; 

As we can see, Ealing Borough has started to roll out pavement widening, which will enable pedestrian social distancing and reassure consumers that measures are in place to keep them safe on the streets of Ealing.

Ealing council received £300,759 from the government's £50million pot to support the recovery of our High Streets which will help deliver a comprehensive package of pedestrian and cycle highways, signage and marketing to promote Ealing as 'Safe' to visit and 'Open' for business.

Please fill in our 'How will you travel to work when lockdown eases?'

We would love to know how you plan to travel to and from work once the lockdown eases. It is only two questions and anonymous, so it will only take a few seconds to complete here.

Government advice is to be creative about how you get to work, so if cycling, driving or scootering are not for you, how about walking the tube stops?

TFL has produced two maps, one detailing how many steps it is between stops, (10,000 is the recommended daily average) and the other tells you how long it will take at an average speed.

It is an excellent way to keep the numbers of the pedometer high and the inches around your waist low! Download the maps here.

Ealing based Alfa Energy has launched Net Zero Carbon, an educational resource for businesses looking to respond to the UK government's 2050 net-zero target.

The site aims to provide businesses with a clear, straightforward approach to achieving net-zero emissions, as well as providing the resources to develop the knowledge and understanding of the opportunities to deliver this critical objective.

Ealing council has pledged to make the borough of Ealing Carbon neutral by 2030, a full 20 years ahead of the rest of the UK. Read how here