Plan for extra Sunday trading hours rejected

On Friday morning, Belfast City Council’s Strategic Policy and Resources Committee voted 11 to 4 against designating the city a “holiday resort”, thus allowing large shops to extend their hours on 18 Sundays each year.

In the last 12 months there has been one committee vote and two public consultations on the topic.

In the two consultations combined, just under 53% of respondents were in favour of extending Sunday trading hours for large shops (defined as having a floorspace of 3,000sq metres or higher)

Retail NI (representing independent retailers) and shopworkers’ union USDAW are firmly against extending the Sunday trading hours in Belfast, feeling that it would unfair to smaller shops and to staff.

Others, including Hospitality Ulster and Visit Belfast, are in favour.

At Friday morning’s meeting, Sinn Fein council group leader Deirdre Hargey proposed that the committee do not accede to the request to extend the Sunday trading hours, and the proposal was carried 11 votes to 4.

Both councillor Hargey and SDLP group leader Tim Attwood said they had not seen enough evidence of the benefits of extending the hours.

Alliance councillors Emmet McDonagh Brown and Sian O’Neill, alongside PUP representative Billy Hutchinson and Independent councillor Patrick Convery, voted to extend the trading hours.

Retail NI chief executive Glyn Roberts Retail NI Chief Executive Glyn Roberts said rejecting the plans was the “right decision” and allowing it to go ahead would have resulted in many smaller retailers shutting their doors.

He said: “We now need to focus on moving forward and agree a broader strategy to grow the weekend economy of Belfast.”

Retail NI has tabled proposals for a ‘Small Shop Sunday’ campaign to encourage shoppers and tourists to support the city’s smaller retailers on a Sunday morning between 11am to 1pm, allowing large retailers to continue to trade from 1pm onwards.

Though the full council must still ratify the committee’s decision, the opposition to extra trading voiced today by both the DUP and SF – which between them hold the current balance of power in the council – mean any revision of the decision is unlikely.