THE York branch of a national builders’ merchant will reopen next Wednesday to help resume its online service to tradespeople.

Selco Builders Warehouse’s 68 branches and all its delivery services have been closed since the UK officially entered lockdown due to the coronavirus outbreak on March 23.

A decision has now been taken for Selco to reopen 42 branches to support the delivery of online orders - through Click & Collect and Click & Deliver – only.

The York branch, based on Osbaldwick Link Road, is one of the branches which will be open.

No customers will be permitted to enter branches and other social distancing measures will be in place for collections and deliveries. Any collections will be made from the car parks of those branches that are open.

Chief executive Howard Luft said: “It’s been an incredibly difficult period for the whole country and it’s been no different for us at Selco.

“We have been monitoring events and government guidance extremely closely and now everything is in place to enable us to offer our customers a revised service, including opening our York branch to support the delivery of online orders, while closely following the social distancing guidelines.

“We are fully aware our customers offer a vital service to the communities in which they operate, providing essential maintenance and repairs to properties, and we are delighted we can once again begin to make at least part of our usual offering available to them.

“The health and wellbeing of our customers and colleagues remains our number one priority.”

Opening hours at Selco York will be limited to 7am-5pm, Monday to Friday. All branches will be closed at weekends.

Customer numbers will be managed through collection time slots to collect their orders, to ensure that social distancing can be maintained.

Howard added: “We would urge only people who have pre-ordered products and materials to visit the York branch – and then only at the time they have been allocated.

“We will constantly monitor operations in all of our branches which are reopening and make adjustments as and where we see fit.

“We will provide a further update on the remaining 26 branches which remain closed in due course.”