Some customers ditch masks but staff keep them on

Kishor Patel, who owns several stores in Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire, said he had left it to customers to choose whether to wear masks and about 80% still are.

Elsewhere, more customers seemed to have abandoned mask wearing. Anita Nye, of Premier Eldred Stores in Orpington, Kent, put the mask-wearing figure at 60%.

At Samantha Coldbeck’s Wharfedale Premier in Hull the figure was even lower, at 50%. She said that her message to customers was: “If you feel comfortable doing so, please wear a mask”.

In Wales, where the legal requirement to wear a mask remains in force, Vince Malone, of Tenby stores, said: “It is still required but about 10 people a day are looking to argue the point and the number of people with exemptions has tripled. Roll on parity with the rest of the UK.”

In most stores it appears that staff are still wearing masks, even if some customers have stopped.

In a straw poll, the NFRN found that all those surveyed said staff were still masked up, and that those stores which have installed protective screens have kept them.