Last week I went to Bude Morrisons once and Holsworthy Waitrose once (sounds like I'm doing too much shopping, but I'm also helping out older friends who are self-isolating). The precautions being taken to control customer numbers, distancing, queuing in the car parks and checkout monitoring were exemplary at both. Waitrose allowed just twenty in the store at any one time and only twenty trolleys were in use, each of which was sanitised between customers. Both shops had signs up everywhere and there were frequent announcements over the PA. Well I went to Bude Lidl yesterday afternoon. Following the visit, I sent the following email to Lidl's head office:

When I visited this store today, there were hardly any measures in place to protect staff and customers. There was no control of customers entering. There was no sanitisation of baskets and trolleys. There were marks on the floor at the tills (nowhere else) but there was no supervision. There were no signs up in the shop. The narrow aisles meant that customers passing each other were far too close together, and many customers were simply not complying with the 2-metre rule. The protection of staff at checkouts was virtually non-existent. My visit to the store, for the purpose of shopping for a couple over 70 who are self-isolating, was most unnerving, and I won't be visiting the store again. My experience was in stark contrast to two other stores in my area, where very responsible controlling of customers and careful sanitisation were being carried out, and in both of which careful controlling of checkout queues was being carried out. I simply couldn't understand the wild-west approach to the crisis that seems to be prevailing at this store. I hope you will take this message seriously and take prompt action to do the right thing. Thank you.
Steve Shaw