Town council chairman's message as Sidmouth comes back to life after lockdown

With shops, hairdressers and beer gardens reopening today, the chairman of Sidmouth Town Council is urging businesses to welcome the likely influx of visitors.

As the town centre comes to life again after lockdown, Ian Barlow hopes local traders will take every opportunity to revive Sidmouth's economy.

He said, while not wanting to play down the impact of Covid-19 on Sidmouth, there are parts of the country whose residents have had a much harder time, and they'll want to enjoy a seaside break now that they're allowed to do so.

Cllr Barlow said: "We've had our tragedies and our hardships but we haven't suffered like people who've lived in a big city, where they don't have the green space and they don't have the seafront, and it's almost our time to give a bit back now.

"We're going to be invaded by a lot of people coming down and we've got to be welcoming and polite and pleasant to these people, because we rely on them to keep our town centre vibrant, to keep our traders going, and we want to make sure we take a couple of quid off them!

"We don't want to take advantage of people, but we need a bit of their money in exchange for being polite and welcoming.

"We all benefit from the tourists coming down here, directly or indirectly, and we just have to accept that for the next few months it will be busier, but we should welcome that because that's what keeps us as we are."