Coronavirus: Churches, businesses and The Dip Shop - how Sunderland city centre is coping with the Covid-19 crisis

Theatres and restaurants have started to shut their doors indefinitely in line with government guidelines on public gatherings.

High Street footfall, already hit by competition from the internet and out-of-town retail parks, is also suffering as a consequence of both the closures and increased home working.

Yet what has not disappeared is the determination of its people to see this crisis through and to find new ways of meeting its challenges.

Nor too has it lost its sense of humour.

The coffee shop

Ariel Niesporek looks around his empty cake and coffee shop before saying with cheery determination: “It has been my wife’s dream to open this shop and we will definitely reopen if we have to close.”

Ariel, 38, and Patrycja Niesporek, 39, spent around £20,000 transforming the former The Fire Place shop, in Tunstall Road, on the edge of Sunderland city centre, into their Pati Cake Patisserie shop.

The early signs since opening in time for last Christmas were promising.

“We were building up, getting more and more customers, thinking of taking on more staff and then this,” he added.

It is just after 11am on a weekday morning and normally Ariel would have expected to have served around 15 people. Today they have had three.

At the moment the Sunderland couple, who also run their Pati Cake Bakery, have no plans to make their four staff redundant and hope customers will take away their cakes if they not comfortable with sitting in.

Ariel is also juggling business uncertainties with worries about his family back home in Gdansk, Poland, where his father has diabetes and heart problems.

He said: “It is difficult back there. In the shops they are only letting people in five at a time with people waiting outside until it is their turn.”

Returning to Sunderland, he has one final if telling point about the nearby Durham Road roundabout, which in many people’s eyes is Sunderland’s worst.

Ariel sighs: “Normally you look outside and all you see because of the that roundabout is traffic. But now? Nothing. It is so quiet.”

The fast food shop

The handwritten sign in The Dip Shop’s window jokingly says: “Stock up on your dips. Free toilet roll with every dip.”

“People stop and have a look and a laugh. You have got to have a laugh with all that is going on,” says business owner James Birch.

James opened The Dip Shop, in Maritime Street, Sunderland city centre, four years ago after previously working as a cleaner for a bus company.

Normally he would expect to have served 30 customers by just before noon on a weekday. Today he has served around half that number.

He now fears his business may have to close “in a month or two” if trade continues to drop.

An additional problem, understandably, are supplies.

“Normally you would be able to get bacon or burgers in 24 hours. Now it is taking a day or two extra,” said James, 61, from Sunderland.

Maritime Street is next to Blandford Street, once one of the city centre’s busiest streets, which has suffered repeated economic blows recently.

“Poundland has gone, Peacocks was destroyed in the fire and part of the street was closed. It is just one thing after another,” laments James.

Our chat is cut short by calls from staff for him to help serve a growing queue of lunchtime customers.

Sunderland has not lost its appetite for The Dip Shop just yet.

The church

Father Marc Lyden-Smith finishes St Mary’s Catholic Church’s regular lunchtime service before the inevitable is confirmed to him.

The Catholic Church in England and Wales has announced that public masses will be suspended until further notice from this Friday.

Father Marc, the city centre’s church parish priest, said: “Our numbers were probably down 150 people at most at one mass.

“People were worried and concerned which is sensible and we understand.”

The Catholic Church has asked that only close family attend baptisms, funeral masses and wedding services with one local couple deciding on Tuesday to postpone their weekend marriage until December.

The city’s Walk to Witness, in which Christians across Sunderland ascend Tunstall Hill as a cross is raised over the city on Good Friday, is to be cancelled for the first time in more than half a century.

It is still hoped that the cross will be erected in private with Father Marc adding: “Last year we had nearly a thousand people there and we just cannot take the chance with a mass gathering like that.”

As with the midday mass which has just taken place, services will be streamed via Facebook and uploaded onto its YouTube channel.

Father Marc added: “The church is going to stay open for people to pop in and pray.

“You can still pray with and for one another and as the virus spreads it is important also that fear doesn’t spread.

“We have fantastic health care workers, doctors and nurses, in Sunderland doing their utmost and it is time for people to be sensible and cautious.”

The established business

The closing down signs appeared on the windows of photography specialist Charles Eagles and Son a month before the ongoing coronavirus crisis escalated.

Competition from the internet and the rise of mobile phones were among the reasons for owner Brian Eagles’s agonising decision to close the business after nearly half a century.

Sales have ironically risen since Brian, 73, the son of late co-founder Charles Eagles, finally opted to begin a belated retirement from March 28.

“A lot of the time while it has been quiet out there we have been selling a lot more stock. People know we are closing down and they are grabbing a bargain while they can,” he says.

One customer had earlier made the 60-mile round trip from Woolsingham, in County Durham, to make a farewell purchase from the Maritime Terrace shop.

But Brian, from Durham, realises he may be a rare exception to the current High Street rule.

“It is a lot quieter than it normally is but there are still people about,” he added.

“It will help if the Government cancels people’s rates which I believe they are going to do.

“But I suspect a lot of people will go bust because I think business has been tough even before the virus came along.

“The High Street in every city has been struggling for quite a few years now.

“People keep on telling me that things will come full circle and the small businesses and independents will become more popular again. But who knows?”