A GAMING company which has an arcade in Hereford will not be reopening today despite initially announcing it would.

Merkur Cashino had planned to open more than 130 venues in England on June 15 after non-essential retailers were given the green light to reopen, in the Prime Minister’s speech on May 28.

But, the Milton Keynes-based company said, their plans are now on hold after a Government U-turn.

Mark Schertle, Chief Operating Officer, outlined “Our entire team is disappointed by this decision that came late evening on June 11. Our Covid-19 secure implementation plan was in the final stages, with all of our teams in England phased to return to work and be ready to open on Monday. Our teams have worked tirelessly to get our business back up and running.”

It is understood that the government advisory team believes that ‘arcades’ would not be able to comply with government guidelines for retail.

This is because customers will need what the Government is calling “dwell time” in order to partake in the activity, which is at odds with guidelines.

The guidelines for retail state that customers should be able to enter a premise, make their purchase and leave as soon as possible.

“This is not the conclusion we were expecting," Mark said.

"While I must say that the support the government has provided throughout the lockdown has been a great lifeline for our business, I do not understand how they can then make a decision like this at the eleventh hour when all of our preparations were nearly complete. We are confident that we have everything in place to keep our teams and customers safe, many of whom were looking forward to the opportunity to come back to our venues.”

The senior management team is now contacting its 1,600 employees and customers to announce the next steps, with a reopening campaign of ‘Open, Clean, Safe’ launched to highlight a raft of new measures being put in place.