Sales are up and order books are filling for businesses across the South West, according to the statistics.
Economic experts at Natwest suggest that the easing of COVID-19 lockdown measures and the release of pent-up customer demand is slowly driving the return to a new normal.
But with the introduction of the 'rule of six', the end of the furlough scheme and the spectre of Brexit - what's the outlook for the months ahead? Five businesses reveal what the Covid-19 comeback is really like.
Emma Rendell, owner PomStitchTassel, Newton Abbot
After a couple of years of taking her craft party and workshop business on the road, 25 year-old seamstress Emma Rendell moved into on a brand new workspace where she could host her parties and events in Newton Abbot - then lockdown hit.
Emma, who started her career with a textiles manufacturing company in Plymouth before deciding to go it alone, said: "I thought to myself, 'have I made a really bad decision', but then I thought, well I have so much stuff and I had outgrown my storage at home and I needed somewhere to work from, that I started to make the best of it."
In fact, Emma used lockdown to get her workshop above Now Vintage Interiors in East Street ready to host parties and officially opened to the public on Saturday - just as the 'rule of six' was announced.
It means that for now, Emma has to scale down the number of people she can host to six rather than a usual minimum of eight.
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"Of course there's a financial implication because its always better to have more people than less but it still works really well and what matters more is that people feel safe and happy to come here."
Emma has worked backstage dressing West End shows, as a seamstress creating high end fashion and as a costume maker for events and theatre companies across the South West.
A self-confessed homebody, she didn't want to make her fortune in the big city.
She said: "The difficulty is that there are not many creative jobs in this part of the world so I decided to set up on my own. I have always wanted to do this - my dream was to become a costume designer so my parties tend to be dress-up theme.
"I found that when I worked in the sewing industry, a lot of the seamstresses were retiring and we are losing all those skills. But there has definitely been a renewed interest during lockdown, parents want to get their children away from the computer screens. I'm so pleased to be able to host the parties again, even if they are a little bit smaller, it is a way of bringing the community back to the high street."
Lady Lucy Kennaway, owner Escot House, Devon
Lady Lucy and her husband John-Michael are at the helm of the family estate that operates as a conference and wedding venue.
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The business closed through lockdown and the Beautiful Days Festival, which is held in the grounds of Escot every August, was cancelled.
Lady Kennaway said: "We have other streams of income from the estate so we’ve survived, but the house has had zero income. We’re now open again for smaller events of up to 30 people and we’ve implemented measures to ensure it’s a Covid secure venue."
Lady Kennaway said one area of growth for the business community will be for organisations that want to connect again.
She said: "This would work well for those teams who are now working from home. Although Zoom and Teams have proved invaluable, you can’t beat face to face even from a distance! We have an onsite partner who provides teambuilding activities and they have implemented Covid secure working, so we can offer a bit of fun together with the serious stuff."
Escot furloughed its small team which will return when the scheme ends in October though perhaps with reduced hours until business picks up again.
Lady Kennaway said: "Weddings that were booked for this year have been moved to 2021 and we’re taking lots of new enquiries, so we’re hoping that area of the business will take off again next year – although it is all very uncertain at the moment.”
Stuart Brocklehurst, Chief Executive, Applegate, Barnstaple
As a technology business, Applegate has seen demand for its services grow during the pandemic. Stuart Brocklehurst, Chief Executive of Barnstaple based Applegate, said: “With people unable to use physical channels – trade shows, travelling salespeople – to trade, there’s increased need for digital platforms.”
Applegate has hired five additional staff and also won a prestigious grant from Innovate 海角视频 to further the development of its artificial intelligence systems. “The pandemic has accelerated many trends that were already evident, whilst that implies contraction in some parts of the economy, it will also accelerate growth in emerging areas.”
At the start of the pandemic, Applegate established a Covid-19 Supply Hub as a free service for organisations needing to source PPE and other essential supplies. This enabled the supply of over a hundred million items, helping hundreds of nursing homes, care agencies, councils and others, both in the South West and across the country.
“The Hub added to our sense of purpose during lockdown, I think we were all really buoyed by the knowledge we were doing something practical to assist. I was very conscious of the importance of mental health during that period of isolation, in addition to the usual quizzes and Zoom-drinks we took quite a wide range of measures, including setting up ‘CowCam’ so we could have bovine company whilst working alone.”
Rachel Buckley, Business Development Director, The Family Law Co, Exeter
This law firm found that lockdown was as busy as ever with a rise in domestic abuse leading to increased demand for family law services.
Staff were quickly set up to work from home and court hearings went online, so staff were able to carry on remotely.
Rachel said: " We realised early on that people needed help understanding the impact of Covid-19 on family issues so we created a series of free webinars. The first gave advice for separated parents about moving children between homes, and later webinars looked at separation during Covid-19, and the enforcement of contact – these have had over 20,000 views now."
Rachel said that the firm continues to be really busy to the extent that it is actively recruiting lawyers.
She said: "We did have to furlough some members of staff and sadly we had to make one role redundant in our marketing team. The rest of our legal teams are now all back and working for the business in some way - with less demands on their time, secretarial staff are being given the opportunity to train as Paralegals and we already know some of them want to go on to train as lawyers, which is all really positive. The six-people restriction doesn’t affect us as we haven’t yet opened our offices to clients.”
Laura Wall, owner of Laura Wall Gallery and LauraWall.com, Teignmouth
Laura and her husband Dave own a gallery and website selling Laura's original art work in Teignmouth alongside an expanding range of gifts and homeware.
Laura said she was nervous when lockdown came into force but used the time to stay creative while Dave sourced new products for the Laura Wall brand and developed the business presence on social media.
Laura explained: "We invested a lot of money into new products so that we would really have something to shout about once we were back open. It was a gamble, but it paid off and by the end of lockdown we had new print releases, an umbrella range, a new strawberry and vanilla gin developed with Exeter Gin, and a kitchenware range, all of which have hugely contributed to our summer sales and gave our lovely customers a reason to come in and see us in the gallery. "
Laura said she used Facebook and Instagram to follow the progress of her paintings. She also saw a rise in website orders and offered free local delivery.
"A couple of days a week my husband and I turned into delivery drivers - was certainly different to working in the gallery but it made things interesting. I loved dropping goody bags and prints onto people’s doorsteps and seeing the huge smiles on their faces."
Laura's Seaside Gin, distilled by Exeter Gin, won Gold in the Taste of the West Awards and future plans include further investment in new product ranges.
She said: "We will have more gift ranges developed ready for Christmas, including puzzles which has become one of our most requested items. There are plenty of ideas, and we are so grateful to our customers for buying from us and inspiring us to keep on developing new ideas."
Liz Chilcott, owner Chilcott Auctioneers, Honiton
Liz and her husband Duncan closed the business completely during lockdown, deciding against taking the auctions online because there is so much contact involved in buying and selling items.
She said: "The good news is that since opening again we have been really busy. There’s a pent up demand from vendors, linked partly to the booming housing market with people moving or downsizing. Many are wanting to take advantage of the high value of gold and prices overall have been good – at our most recent auction on September 5 we were astounded by the prices achieved."
She said a lot of work has gone into becoming Covid-19 safe with the installation on screens and hand sanitiser and staff wearing gloves and masks.
She said: "We’ve unfurloughed all our staff and I can say honestly that having coped through lockdown, we feel secure about the future of our business.
"We recently received advice from the Society of Fine Art Auctioneers and Valuers about how the 6-people restriction affects us, and we are asking people attending for viewings to book in advance with limited numbers coming into the sale room at one time.”