Portsmouth area businesses hope new law to limit gatherings to six people won't affect them

The new law will reduce the legal limit from 30 people to six and apply to meetings indoors and outdoors, including parks, pubs and restaurants.

It comes after the number of daily positive Covid-19 cases in the UK rose to almost 3,000.

Sara Pollard-Dambach just reopened The Roebuck Inn in Wickham and hopes the new law won’t affect business.

The 33-year-old from Hayling Island said: ‘It is a bit daunting to have everything thrown up in the air again for businesses but we hope that it won’t affect us too much.

‘We laid out the pub in tables of four and six, we have a one-way system round the pub and we have been doing track and trace to make sure all our customers are as safe as possible which is our priority.’

George Purnell, owner of Koop+Kraft in Cowplain, added: ‘I think they spent a lot of money on Eat Out to Help Out to increase consumer confidence and now it is likely that we’re going to lose some of that again which I think will affect business.

‘I think in broader term for the economy it will affect a lot confidence for going out anywhere and fear a second lockdown could possibly be on the way.’Prime minister Boris Johnson is due to hold a press conference at 4pm today to talk more about the change in law that he hopes will make it easier for the police to deal with illegal gatherings.

Sheena Hulme, chief operating officer at the New Theatre Royal in Portsmouth, hopes more details will be given about how it could affect theatres and music venues.

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She told The News: ‘I don’t know why the announcement was made so late last night with not a lot of detail but hopefully today’s press conference will give us more information about what it means.

‘They made it clear that it wouldn’t affect sports organisations, weddings and funerals but there wasn’t much detail for other businesses.

‘We are planning to have our youth theatre back so now we don’t know if that could be affected.’

The new law also does not apply to schools and workplaces or gatherings of more than six people will be allowed where the household or social bubble is larger than six.

It will be enforced through a £100 fine, doubling up to a maximum of £3,200.

Keep up to date with the latest coronavirus news in Portsmouth with our Coronavirus Updates Facebook group.

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