ONE week on from shop’s reopening and it’s mixed fortunes across the borough, according to local retailers.

After being hit by months of successive closures non essential retail is back but fears remain over whether local stores will ever fully recover.

Paul Hepworth, of Paul's Jewellers in Tommyfield Market, said the battered town centre was still “not in good shape,” after being hit hard by the loss of big-name high-street stores such as Debenhams which he described as a “serious loss for Oldham.”

He added: “On the news it shows people queuing up to get in shops like Primark it’s not like that in here they haven’t flooded back in through these doors.”

“Everyone thinks ‘retail now you’re all booming again’ we’re not, we’re struggling, we’re hanging on.

“People aren’t coming in shopping and you know what they say if you don’t use it you’ll lose it, they’re not coming in the market anymore and shopping.”

He put the reduced footfall down to the majority of the town centre’s work force still working from home.

“Without them you’re missing half your shopping public,” he said.

“The inside cafes are also closed (under current lockdown restrictions) which doesn’t help”, he added.

Justin Brierley, of A&Y Brierley footwear, which started trading in Tommyfield in 1968, said it was a “scary” period for people and that it would take time for the market to get back on its feet.

He said: “I was always told not to run before I could walk and at the minute it’s like opening a new business again, even though we’ve been here over fifty years.

“My family’s been here for a long time, so I am hopeful that my regular customers come back soon, I saw some last week.”

He added that many customers were just picking up what they wanted before heading home, with some finding it difficult to get buses into town.

He said: “The buses are only half full at the moment, if there’s too many people on the buses they’re just driving past people and leaving them in the bus shelter until the next one comes along. I had a customer who had to wait for four buses the other day before finding one she could sit on.”

Mark Crossley, of Crossley’s Fish in Tommyfield Market Hall, said the past week had been “encouraging” with footfall up for the first time in twelve months.

He said: “The weather helped and there was a positive vibe around the market. It was nice to see old faces back and some new one’s too.”

Over in Spindles, Michelle Hattersley who manages the YMCA charity shop conversely described the previous seven days as “the best week’s trading since the shop opened,” with customers “over the moon” that the store’s doors have re-opened.

She said: “We’ve been nonstop since Monday and still busy.”