BIELDSIDE INN

As the region starts to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic it is important to think about connectivity, specifically around Aberdeen city centre.

The high street had been struggling long before the three-month lockdown and, after being forced to shut their doors for a prolonged period, many businesses will be unsure whether they can afford to reopen.

While the economy has been gradually restarted, many new measures will have to be put in place to make retail and hospitality safe for staff and customers.

So how will these changes affect businesses?

Will they remain in place once the threat of Covid-19 has diminished?

What else have businesses had to do to survive through the downturn so far?

I sat down with Matthew Finnie, whose family run Finnies the Jewellers on George Street, and Paul Finch, strategy manager at Nestrans, for a virtual lunch to discuss all things connectivity.

On this occasion my guests and I were treated to lunch courtesy of Paul

Clarkson and the team at the Bieldside Inn. Delivered to the door in time for our meeting, the three of us tucked into chicken goujons, macaroni and scampi and chips while we chatted over Teams.

Although it doesn’t have the same feeling as being in the restaurant itself, it was nice to feel you could still have lunch in a working environment even when forced to work from home.

Mr Finnie’s family has been running its business from the city centre for more than 60 years. It employs more than 40 staff and not only serves the people of the north-east but is shipping jewellery to homes around the world.

Thanks to connectivity, its online business allowed it to keep operating through the pandemic, something which would have been almost impossible under the same restrictions when it first opened.

Mr Finnie said at the start of lockdown they had to furlough some staff and reduced some of the hours to part-time. However, their online shop and delivery services meant they could retain a number of people, which allowed the business to keep going.

He said: “From day one there were people asking if we were closed and how long we would be closed for.

“I think initially people just thought it would be for a few weeks and a lot of people were contacting us, but we do have a great online service and website and we sold during lockdown a huge amount of products.

“We were selling things in Rosemount, which is less than a mile away. It was crazy. I have sat down and analysed the orders and there were pieces going out to Peterhead, Fraserburgh and to Plymouth. I don’t think you can get somewhere further away in terms of the UK.

“We also sold pieces around the globe. We had a clock go to Texas, some watches to Hong Kong and a couple of things to France.

“We got two inquiries in the same day for two different products from Belgium and they were unrelated in any way. It was just so random.”

Mr Finnie said that by continuing to manage online sales they were able to ship items abroad using DHL in around the same time as Royal Mail delivered to places in the UK.

The family also took it upon themselves to make deliveries to people in the local area, while dressed with masks, and by arranging socially distanced drop-offs.

Now that the city centre is opening up again customers are able to come and collect jewellery themselves, but new measures make the shopping experience that bit different.

The pedestrianation of many city centre streets has been contentious but Mr Finch believes that, if carried out correctly, it could be hugely beneficial to businesses and may even be something the council looks to adopt on a more permanent basis after the pandemic.

He said: “There have had to be structural changes to take into account new behaviours and how people are going to have to react going forward.

Working from home, what’s going to happen to offices? Are we going to have the same number of people going into city centres as we did previously?

“There are two things going on and they kind of balance each other out. People are scared to use public transport so people are turning towards more car use or cycling and walking but then you have this thing about people staggering their journeys to avoid the peaks so that helps us smooth it out a bit more.

“I think during lockdown people really enjoyed walking and cycling but as a manager of public space we have to give people the opportunity to have more physical distancing than they previously would have.

“That’s quite important when you

FOOD FOR THOUGHT: Lunch was courtesy of Paul Clarkson and the team at the Bieldside Inn, delivered to the door in