THERE are three types of people in this crisis: shovers, draggers and nudgers. The shovers want to push back against the rules and get back to normal quickly and are willing to take risks to get there. The draggers want to stay indoors until everything is 100% safe. And the nudgers think we should be taking small, logical steps back to normality as soon as we can. We could do with a lot more nudging.

What I mean by that is there are shops and businesses that are still closed because of coronavirus that don’t need to be closed and they’re starting to get restless and rightly so. I’ve spoken to one or two of them and, while some are more cautious than others, many believe they could safely re-open now and common sense says they’re right.

Garden centres, for example. I spoke to Adam McGowan, the general manager of McLaren’s Nurseries near Barrhead, and he told me a bit about how they’ve been affected by the crisis. The staff at the nursery spend years nurturing their stock, but under lockdown some plants have had to be dumped, others may not survive much longer, and anyone who’s a gardener will know how that feels. It’s gutting, says Adam.

The business model has also come under huge pressure. McLaren’s are still taking some orders over the phone while the nursery itself is closed to the public, and their drivers are doing 80 to 100 drops a day. But there’s no way deliveries can replace the business they would have had: there are lots of customers who can’t get what they want and the business is losing potential profit.

The thing is: there’s no reason for it to go on like this. McLaren’s, and other businesses like it, could re-open tomorrow. Indeed, a handful of bigger B&Qs have reopened with social distancing in place.There’s plenty of space at the McLaren’s site – more than 50 acres – but even smaller garden centres usually have plenty of space and big aisles. They could also, as supermarkets have done, introduce a one-way system and put up signs to remind people of social distancing.

Following the same principles, there are other businesses that could open right away: DIY stores, bike shops, car dealers, even museums and book shops, provided of course they had an upper limit on customers. Not only would it apply a couple of spark plugs to the economy, it would be good for the mental wellbeing of the people stuck at home 99% of the time. And, although it might seem counter-intuitive, allowing people to go out to buy plants and DIY supplies would also encourage them to stay at home more by giving them things to do while they’re there.

Not every business thinks this way, of course. I spoke to the owner of the hardware store, Timbermills in Cumnock, and he was cautious about re-opening. Like everyone else, he’s lost trade, but he thinks re-opening too soon would end up costing more money in safety measures, PPE equipment for staff, and so on. He’s also concerned customers coming back to the shop might lead to another spike in the virus, another lockdown and an even bigger hit to profits.

Then there are the businesses who feel that even being allowed to re-open would not help at this stage. Shaun Bythell, who owns The Bookshop in Wigtown, has seen positive signs in other countries – in Italy and Austria bookshops and garden centres were among the first to reopen. But he says the majority of his customers are retired, which means they’d be self-isolating anyway even if he did re-open.

And it doesn’t end there: there’s the added worry that the moment restrictions are lifted, Shaun’s business would no longer be eligible for government assistance – not that he’s received a penny so far. As for his assessment of the future of the bookshop, it’s suitably literary – he is, he says, “in blood stepped in so far, returning were as tedious as go o’er”. Macbeth, Act 3, Scene 4.

Listening to Shaun talk about his experiences isn’t easy, but other businesses that do feel that they could reopen safely should be allowed to do so. Adam at McLaren’s told me the nursery could reopen tomorrow and do it safely and he believes the vast majority of garden centres are in the same situation.

So let them do it, and the shovers, draggers and nudgers will do their thing. The shovers will push the limits but will be forced to obey the rules on social distancing. The draggers will stay at home for quite a bit longer. And the nudgers will get out and start shopping and feeling normal again. The point is that we cannot stay like this for much longer. We need the first relaxation, the first let-up, the first nudge.

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