8:50 am, July 6, 2021
Dealers are waiting to hear if their businesses can return to normal on July 19 following the prime minister’s announcement yesterday (July 5).
PM Boris Johnson announced that England is on course to lift all remaining Covid-19 restrictions in England in just 13 days’ time.
The move is likely to mean that mask wearing, social distancing and test and trace log-ins will no longer be required at English car dealerships.
It is also expected that sites will no longer be required by law to have Covid secure certificates and the much-debated ‘rule of six’ will also be ditched.
The government is also ending its advice for people to work from home, meaning that all dealership employees should be able to return to working on site.
Further guidance on how businesses can reduce unnecessary contact in the workplace, where it is practical, is expected to be issued in due course.
Venues will still be encouraged to offer QR codes for customers to scan via the NHS Covid-19 app, but it will no longer be a legal requirement.
Johnson said: ‘We must be honest with ourselves that if we can’t reopen our society in the next few weeks, when we will be helped by the arrival of summer and by the school holidays, then we must ask ourselves: when will we be able to return to normal?’
Confirmation of the new guidelines will bring to an end a turbulent period for dealerships in England.
Since then, they have largely remained open but have been subject to tight restrictions to ensure Covid safety.
There is still no word on when dealerships in the rest of the UK will see restrictions lifted.
