The second lockdown within Leicester has seen the eyes of the UK turn to the city on how they handle ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

While talks and speculation of a second wave continue to be a hot topic across the nation, the repeat of quiet streets and closed businesses is a dreaded thought for many.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock announced yesterday that a partial ease in restrictions will be lifted in Leicester from July 24 following a drop in cases over the past month.

Speaking at the House of Commons, he said: “We will review them again in a fortnight. I hope that this careful easing of restrictions will provide some comfort to people in Leicester and Leicestershire.”

The latest data showed that the seven-day infection rate in the city has decreased from 1535 cases per 100,000 people to 119.

Mayor of Leicester, Sir Peter Soulsby, said that he believes that the city’s restrictions should now be reduced by 90%.

He said he was “extremely frustrated that a sledgehammer approach is being taken to deal with an issue in a very small part of the city”.

Although scenes of panic buying have been avoided, several convenience and indie stores within the area told Asian Trader that the mood has been mixed for the past four weeks.

For Hareesh Dutta, he has been solely running his Bargain Booze branch throughout the pandemic, he told us that the second lockdown has seen a bigger dent in sales compared to the first time.

“Sales have been down by 70%,” he said. “because before not many people were panicking about the Covid-19 but now on the second lockdown, people appeared to be more worried and therefore not as many people have been coming in store.”

Following the latest Government’s ruling of making it compulsory for people to wear face masks while visiting shops, Mr Dutta welcomed the move.

He said: “Yeah that’s a good thing, before lockdown people would be wearing masks coming into store and I’ve been selling them aswell.”

While maintaining stock has not been a cause for concern, Mr Dutta has reduced his closing time from 9pm to 7pm, which has made him anxious of his store’s stability going forward.

“It is very scary, I’m not surprised there’s been a second lockdown,” he admitted. “The mood within Leicester is a lot more tense.”
Over at independent shop Ali’s News, store owner Samim Adam has mostly kept her business closed only opening if customers call asking to purchase items in stock.

Being located close to a primary school, busy footfalls during the mornings and afternoons have completely cease, resulting in the store deciding to only allow one shopper in at a time.

Speaking about the second lockdown, she said: “I am not surprised that is has happened, when people are not going to listen to rules it’s going to happen again. I worry about it a lot.”

“I have known some people that have contracted coronavirus who have sadly died that were close family and friends,” she added. “They didn’t work in the retail industry but it has made me wary about how I operate within store.”

As for Rakesh, who has been running Kesh’s Wines and Newsagents for 14 years, also felt that people have still not been taking lockdown and social distancing seriously enough.

“I feel people are still relaxed about it all,” he said. “The majority of people have not been wearing face masks, all of our staff have and fortunately no one has contracted the virus.”

When asked about the panic buying, the store owner said that the situation has been handled well, praising his stock suppliers on preventing them having empty shelves.

“We haven’t really run out of anything despite being busier than ever, we have been quite blessed our suppliers being good. We did experience the panic buying the first time but not so much this time round.

He added: “This has definitely been the hardest thing I have to deal with in my time running my store.”

With non-essential travel, and the reopening of bars and restaurants in within the city still banned, the council also confirmed that several boroughs including Oadby and Wigston will still be enduring lockdown beyond July 24 due to high case numbers.

It appears that life in Leicester will still be strict compared the rest of UK for some time.