Furniture shops - including DFS, Furniture Village and Dunelm - re-open - Scarborough's nearest outlets

DFS and Furniture Village are to reopen outlets in time for the bank holiday weekend after the government cleared furniture stores to restart trade.
Dunelm in ScarboroughDunelm in Scarborough
Dunelm in Scarborough

Furniture Village will reopen all 46 branches on Saturday May 23 after testing physical distancing measures in six stores including Bristol, Gillingham, Tamworth and York over the past week.

DFS is set to open a handful of outlets on Friday. Fellow sofa specialist ScS said it was aiming to reopen “as soon as practically possible”. Ikea is also believed to be planning to trial a small number of stores as early as this weekend.

DFS has outlets on Birstall, Leeds, Hull and York.

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The openings come after homewares chain Dunelm tested the water with the opening of seven stores in the Midlands on May 12 after it said the government had given it the go-ahead.

The retailer has gradually reopened 39 of its 171 stores and enabled online shoppers to collect orders from the majority of stores since May 12.

Its store in Seamer Road, Scarborough, is open for click and collect only: its Leeds and York stores are open with social distancing in place.

The furniture retailers have taken action after the government subtly clarified its definition of “essential” retailers to say homeware stores were included, rather than its earlier definition of “home and hardware” stores.

Industry insiders said retailers had also held back on reopening because of concerns about how to safely operate deliveries of large items, such as sofas, which require two people.