A BRINKWORTH businesswoman is hoping her business distributing cardboard tents for festival goers can help firms as lockdown loosens.

Kirsty Peters is the UK’s sole distributor of the tents, but with festivals cancelled, orders have followed suit. So she hopes to sell re-purposed tents to offices and cafes as protective barriers.

Dutch company Kartent produces the tents, and the fall off in festival trade has left them with 50,000 in the warehouse.

Kirsty has had the sole UK distribution rights for more than a year and operates from a storage facility between Brinkworth and Malmesbury.

She hopes to fill a gap in the market by creating desk dividers and large cardboard screens with clear windows to convert open plan offices into smaller personal sections.

“We are just trying to be entrepreneurial and at the same time provide a useful solution,” said Kirsty. “Our festival orders have all but dried up, but we have this product that can be useful for businesses as they start to open up.”

“Also, we hope that at some point in the future, these barriers won’t be needed anymore, so they are made of cardboard and therefore easy to recycle.The idea has also been adopted by cafes to carve out personal space in the shop so that people can enjoy refreshments with the comfort of a protective shield.”