Businesses at the unique town centre hub that is St Michael’s Trading Estate are preparing to open this weekend.

Lots has been happening during lockdown at St Michael’s Trading Estate.

The hub is home to a number of businesses in Bridport, many of which are preparing to open this weekend under a rebranded estate.

Some traders have been able to carry on throughout the lockdown by adapting, while others have taken the opportunity to redecorate, rebrand and think of plans for the future.

Richard Payne-Withers who runs The Alleyways said they shut down the morning of the evening announcement stating the country would be going into lockdown.

He said: “We stopped charging all our sub-tenants immediately, so they had free storage, so our income stream stopped overnight completely.

“We’ve spent the time sorting stock, re-doing the inside of the shop, we’ve re-done the shop front itself and freshened the whole place up. Our tenants have been coming in on a rota system to sort out their individual units.

“We’ve got screens, sanitiser and we have had to employ more people because where we would normally have two people during the week, we have got to have someone at the door, someone on the counter and people on the floor. We are restricting the number of people in the shop.”

Roy Gregory of Clocktower Music started doing mail order for the first two months, from which he managed to get around 40 per cent of his normal business.

“We used the time to really redesign and rebrand, repaint and make it even more of a destination,” he said.

There will be a one-way system at the shop, marked with the Blue Meanies finger from The Yellow Submarine, and customers will be given gloves to browse.

Mike Dark of Bridport Auction House had an auction scheduled for March 27 but had to close on March 23.

He said: “After the initial shock and panic, my staff and I recovered and resigned ourselves to applying for grants, loans and furlough schemes.

“We’ve now opened again, and I am accepting consignments for my next sale on Friday, July 17. It will be purely online with no public sale on the day and Id viewing days with customers having to wear gloves and me in a visor. Gloves are important because collectors and dealers need to handle the items.

“It will mean extra work, giving more detailed condition reports by email and making a safe environment for staff and customers, but it will be wonderful to be back at work and keeping the business alive after an enforced yet sunny holiday.”

It has been a whirlwind year for Will and Alex Heaton-Livingstone who took over Wessex Wines in September.

Will said: “We quickly mobalised into a delivery service and offering free delivery for a 15-mile radius of Bridport and it was good. The general enthusiasm of wine drinking across the country was good for us, lots of people were using our business.

“We’re currently redecorating with a new sign and re-branding as Selected Grapes and we’re opening on Saturday.

“We took the shop over in September and had our first baby in December, so it has been a whirlwind of a year.

“The deliveries have been really good and have offered me flexibility being at home, but I am looking forward to getting back in the shop and seeing all my customers and having that interaction.”

The trading estate itself has since become a sponsor of Drimpton FC, which led to a new logo that its tenants can use when promoting their business, on the estate website and hopefully on a new flag as it has been decided to replace the temporary flagpole that was erected in memory of owner Clive Hayward last year with a permanent pole and flag on the Tower Building.

The team at Haywards and Co, which run the estate, also reduced the rent for their tenants and plan to overhaul and upgrade the trading estate’s website.