Shops will be allowed to stay open 24 hours a day in the run-up to Christmas

Housing and Local Government Secretary Robert Jenrick has said shops can stay open longer, urging councils to waive rules restricting hours.

Currently, retail shops have to apply under the town and country planning act to extend their hours beyond 9am to 7pm Monday to Saturday, a process which can take weeks. 

In seeking to help retail and some 125,000 jobs, the government has allowed non-essential shops to reopen from Wednesday after a month of a second-national lockdown. 

Mr Jenrick revealed that shops should be able to stay open for 24 hours if they wish throughout both December and January, with next month being ‘the most important December ever for retailers’.

Writing in The Daily Telegraph, Mr Jenrick said: “With these changes local shops can open longer, ensuring more pleasant and safer shopping with less pressure on public transport.

“How long will be a matter of choice for the shopkeepers and at the discretion of the council.

“But I suggest we offer these hard pressed entrepreneurs and businesses the greatest possible flexibility this festive season.

“Therefore as Local Government Secretary I am relaxing planning restrictions and issuing an unambiguous request to councils to allow businesses to welcome us into their glowing stores late into the evening and beyond if wish.”

He added that flexible deliveries will ‘keep the streets free for the rest of us’ and that stores can ‘replenish their shelves whenever they want’. 

Brits are being told to support retail by going on a ‘shopping splurge’ over Christmas.

Helen Dickinson, chief executive of the British Retail Consortium, told The Mirror: “While reopening offers a lifeline for many shops, it will be the public who have the final say.

“Thankfully, Christmas is the perfect reason to shop, knowing that every purchase we make is a retailer helped and a job supported.”

She added: “High streets, shopping centres and retail parks have all seen footfall nose-dive during lockdown, with closed shops estimated to have lost around £2billion per week in lost sales.”

Andrew Goodacre, head of the British Independent Retailers Association, said: “This is the most important December ever for retailers and the high streets throughout the UK.

“We need customers to return to the shops and enjoy a traditional Christmas shopping experience and support the local community at the same time”.

Jenrick went on to add that he will be slashing regulations for British shopkeepers, adding: “Today I am… announcing a temporary relaxation in shop opening hours this Christmas and through January, asking councils to allow extended hours for shoppers on every high street Monday to Saturday.

“None of us I suspect enjoy navigating the crowds.

“And none would relish that when social distancing is so important to controlling the virus in the final furlong before the vaccine rollout commences.”