Queues as Thistles reopens its doors

Shoppers queued to get in to Stirling’s Thistles Shopping Centre as it reopened this week.

The centre has remained closed, even after non-essential shops across the city started reopening earlier this month.

First Minister last week announced that Scotland is now in phase three of its emergence from lockdown and as a result, from Monday, non-essential shops inside shopping centres were allowed to reopen.

On Monday morning, around 50 people were queuing at the centre’s Port Street entrance prior to it opening.

Following the reopening, centre director, Gary Turnbull, said: “The health and safety of our customers, retailers, and our team remains paramount and therefore in line with government guidance we have installed a oneway system throughout the centre, in which we ask all customers to keep left and maintain a distance of two metres.

“In addition to this, we have hand sanitiser readily available at all entry/exit points, car park payment machines, lift lobbies, and at our customer service desk. All customers are reminded that they must wear a mask when shopping at Thistles. All safety measures are available to view on our website.”

Currently the only toilets which are open are those located next to the Zara store, with social distancing measures in place.

The centre opening hours are currently 9am until 5.30pm fro Monday to Saturday and 10am until 5pm on Sunday. The car park opening times are from 8.30am until 6pm from Monday to Saturday and 9.30am until 5.30pm on Sunday.