JUNE 1st is not just the first day of winter in 2020.

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It’s the first day for intra state travel for the sake of travel since the COVID-19 travel restrictions were put into place.

From June 1 restaurants, pubs and club restrictions have also been lifted to 50 seated guests.

Relaxed travel restrictions on top of the June 8 Queen’s Birthday Public Holiday in NSW will undoubtedly see tourists flood into the Bay once again.

As we get ready to ramp up and allow these tourists to support our local economy there are things that we can do to keep ourselves and our vulnerable residents safe.

Leah Anderson President of the Tomaree Business Chamber is cautiously welcoming the lifting of travel restrictions and knows the visitation will be great for businesses.

Anderson told News Of The Area, “Well it is a good start and it needs to be managed, we have a fine lines, we have a community that is incredibly vulnerable, and some of our community members will be quite scared about people coming.

“At the same time we have businesses that are going broke, have closed their doors, or who are just holding on, who are dying for things to open back up again.”

She believes that we all need to play our part to keep everyone safe and that means more than just social distancing.

For some of us it might mean helping the vulnerable to shop online, or to do their shopping for them.

“For others, particularly our older residents it might mean that they need to plan to be at the shops when it isn’t as busy so shopping mid week rather than on the weekends, going into town for a coffee earlier in the day before it gets busy and making restaurant reservations.”

Anderson is asking locals to think about shopping a couple of days prior to the long weekend rather on the Friday, and to help our older residents to manage the way they shop once the restrictions are lifted.

If we can manage the times when we access the shops it will certainly help our local businesses, our retail workers while helping us ease into the changes.

She is also keen to see more on street dining options available throughout all our townships and for businesses to offer diners set times for meals allowing businesses to conduct multiple seatings for each meal.

We are all in this together.

If we plan ahead we will see positive impacts on the local economy and local jobs while managing to stay COVID-19 safe.

By Marian SAMPSON