Banbridge is like a '˜ghost town' as snow forces businesses to close

Heavy snow has turned Banbridge into a ghost town with many shops being forced to close, one local trader has said.

Martin Burns of Kliperz, battled against the elements this morning to ensure they were open for business, however with concerns about customer safety they decided to close early.

Roads and pavements in the town were in terrible conditions after several hours of snowfall left Banbridge covered in a blanket of deep snow.

Martin said: “Conditions weren’t great, it was pretty slow going getting in to the town, the biggest problem we had was getting customers and staff members in.

“We have staff members from outside Newry who couldn’t make it in as conditions were pretty bad.

“The town was like a ghost town, there were some businesses open but we made a decision to close. A couple of our customers had to cancel, they live in the country and couldn’t get in, the snow was blowing and they couldn’t get their car out.

“So we decided just to let the rest of the staff go home and close the businesses up for the day. There wasn’t many people on the streets, you could have picked your parking spaces.”

An Amber warning for snow has been issued by the Met Office for the Banbridge area and most, if not all schools have closed.

Martin added: “There was a digger which came up one side of the street and cleared it and it made a difference on one side.”

“It’s still snowing, it really hasn’t stopped in Banbridge. It’s not a nice decision that we had to make. When we closed there we noticed that a few others that had also closed. Apparently the Outlet has closed.”