Three branches of a supermarket chain in Swansea have been issued with partial closure notices, after being found to have breached Covid lockdown regulations.
Swansea Council issued the notices to Tesco stores in Fforestfach, Pontarddulais and in Swansea city centre, after officers visited and found them to be in breach by selling ‘non-essential’ items.
The closure notices were issued on Sunday, January 17.
The Tesco Extra store on Oystermouth Road was found ‘not to have taken all reasonable measures to prevent the transmission of Covid as you have not restricted the access and sale of non-essential items’.
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It was also identified as having ‘used “point of sale” signage despite guidelines stating that businesses cannot divest their duty to customers’.
It was ordered to restrict access to items including carpets and clothing, with the exception of babies’ clothing, games, bedding, soft furnishings and phone accessories.
The notices for the Tesco stores in Fforestfach and Tidal Reach in Pontarddulais outlined similar reasons.
And they followed an improvement notice issued to its store in Llansamlet last month when too many customers were found to be inside.
Wales has been on Alert Level 4 restrictions since Sunday, December 20, which means people must stay at home, except for very limited purposes, and must not visit other households, or meet other people they do not live with.
It also means restaurants, cafes, bars and pubs have had to close, although they can provide takeaway food.
Latest infection figures for Wales published on Tuesday, January 19 show 1,106 new cases of the virus have been recorded to bring the total since the pandemic began to 182,599.
The overall death total with lab-confirmed coronavirus now stands at 4,302 in Wales.
A spokesperson for Tesco said: “Our stores in Swansea continue to sell food and essential items and these partial closure notices relate specifically to the non-food aisles of the three stores.
“While we believe that our stores in Wales comply with the rules on the sale of non-essential goods, we are working closely with the local authority to meet the requirements needed to lift the notices, and are consulting with our primary authority and Welsh Government officials to seek a consistent interpretation of the guidance.”
