Entertainment and shopping venues across south east London are preparing for the return of customers next week, implementing a range of Covid measures.

Non-essential retail and outdoor hospitality will unlock on April 12, allowing Bluewater, the O2 and Lewisham Shopping Centre to reopen their doors.

Safety measures include one-way queuing systems, social distancing ‘champions’ and hand sanitiser stations located throughout.

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Robert Goodman, Senior Centre Director at Bluewater, said: “The entire team here at Bluewater is looking forward to welcoming our brand partners and guests back.

"The health and safety of everyone who visits our centre is our number one priority, as it has been throughout this crisis and we continue to follow the Government’s guidelines.

“Our teams are incredibly experienced in keeping the centre safe and clean.

"A huge thank you to our team for all their hard work in preparing for this moment, they are now very well practised in managing the re-opening of non-essential retail.

“We’ll again be managing the capacity of the centre closely, and at busier times you may be asked to queue outside.”

At all three venues a queuing system will operate for entry if capacity is reached.

A host of retailers operating out of the shopping centres also confirmed their specific reopening plans this week.

John Lewis outlined its plans for its remaining 32 shops in England, which include customers finally being allowed to have their children’s feet measured for shoes and the reopening of technology support desks.

Fitting rooms will be open, “customer service hosts” will manage customer numbers and queues and a returns process will involve new drop boxes and the quarantining of returned stock for 48 hours.

Next day click and collect services will also resume in John Lewis shops, in addition to pick-up locations in Waitrose, Co-op and Booths, taking the total number of collect locations to more than 900.

Primark is planning to offer extended opening hours across almost every store in England and Wales to help reduce queues, spread demand and give customers more time to shop safely.

For the first week initially, stores will open for two extra hours per day on average, typically an hour earlier and later, with times varying by store.

Poundland is reopening more of its hibernating shops and plans to open more new stores over the next six months to help support the UK’s recovery from the coronavirus pandemic

As an essential retailer, the majority of Poundland stores have remained open throughout lockdown, but 55 “hibernating” shops will reopen on April 12.