BUSINESSES owners are celebrating after being allowed to re-open for the first time in more than three months.

Pubs, hairdressers and restaurants in Halstead and the surrounding villages were finally able to open again on Saturday.

The day - dubbed ‘Super Saturday’ - couldn’t come soon enough for some worried business owners.

Abigail Cutter, 26, is the owner of Cutters hair salon in Halstead’s Head Street.

Cutters re-opened on Saturday and has been flooded with business, much to the excitement of staff.

Abigail said: “We’ve been waiting for this for a long time. We re-opened on Saturday and it’s been crazy busy with customers.

“They’ve been keen to hear from us and when we were told we could re-open on July 4 we started taking appointments.

“Obviously we’ve had to take precautions to make sure our clients are safe.

“All our staff wear visors and after every client we disinfect each area.

“We also wear disposable aprons for each customer and our clients also have disposable gowns.

“We do have our regular gowns but they need to be washed at 90 degrees after each use so we use them once and switch to the disposable ones.

“Things are taking longer than normal and we can’t do walk-ins at the moment so everyone has to make a booking.

“We got a £10,000 grant from the Government which helped, but it mainly just covered our rent.

“In the first month we are just keeping up with the high demand so we’re open for seven days a week.

“We’ve also extended our opening hours so we open until seven rather than half five just to meet demand.

“We don’t want to let people down, especially when so many people are desperate to get their hair done.”

While many have been eager to get their first trim in three months, others have also been keen to get back into the pub.

Many pubs re-opened on Saturday, although some, such as the Five Bells in Colne Engaine, waited until yesterday.

The White Hart, on Halstead High Street, opened on Saturday.

Owner Charles Townsend, 70, said: “It’s been fine and all our customers have been behaving responsibly.

“Re-opening has gone smoothly. Everyone is well separated and signed in.

“It feels great to finally re-open because it’s what we’re here for.

“We’re here to provide a service. The customers seem pleased to be back as well, even with all the restrictions.

“We currently have a screen around the bar.

“We’re also doing table service and there is a one-way system in place.

“We’ve done our best and I think the changes have been successful, but this is just a stepping stone until we can serve food again.

“I’m sure we will be changing things as we go on.

“We didn’t want to be doing booking in advance, but we wanted to avoid everyone turning up and coming in at once.

“We’re doing it first-come, first-served and if there is a free table we will show you to it.”

With so many restrictions in place, the were concerns over how many customers businesses would be able to let in.

Charles added: “So far it’s a bit less but we are still OK. It’s still hard to judge at this stage because we’re not doing food.

“It’s not easy to tell but people are coming in and in reasonable numbers too.”