Sunday 11 October 2020 10:00 am | Updated: Saturday 10 October 2020 12:09 pm

BOXPARK chief: Government must allow hospitality businesses to recover

The past few months have been some of the most difficult for the hospitality industry – and now, just as many of us are getting back on our feet, we have been hit by new restrictions that could last for up to six months.

Six months is an extremely long time for an industry that is already on its knees.

In my view the recent Government measures seem to be a sudden panic move or knee jerk reaction rather than a well devised long-term strategy because there’s no real evidence to suggest that the reopening of hospitality is linked to the rise in Covid-19 cases or hospital admissions.

Furthermore, it’s inconsistent and confusing for everyone. We spent months encouraging people to ‘Eat Out to Help Out’ and now we are telling the public it is unsafe to do so.

At BOXPARK, we welcome any measures that will prevent a second wave and help to stop the spread of the Coronavirus because the wellbeing of our customers and staff is our number one priority.

For example, when we reopened our sites we implemented our own digital track and trace system before the government version was ready, we launched a Mobile Ordering service, including Click + Collect and more recently, Table Service.

We have also scaled back our events programme, changed our seating arrangements and enforced face coverings in line with Government guidelines.

In the business, we have already seen a serious negative impact on sales since the 10pm curfew was imposed and I’m genuinely concerned for pubs and bars which mostly rely on evening trade, as well as smaller, independent venues.

This negative impact on business in the hospitality sector is going to result in thousands of venues closing and workers being made redundant.

Instead of the Government targeting young people with the curfew, they should focus the scarce resources into protecting the elderly and vulnerable communities.

With that in mind, BOXPARK have made the decision to support the #CancelTheCurfew campaign in the hope that the pressure will force the Government to make a U-turn on the restrictions.

The potential damage from the curfew could be catastrophic. Before the curfew came into play, half of the UK’s 100,000 hospitality firms feared they wouldn’t survive beyond the middle of 2021.

For those of us that do survive, the big question on all of our minds is rent. The curfew coupled with the other new measures is resulting in a loss of income for the industry – putting additional pressures on an operator’s ability to pay rent.

The Government however, have chosen to ignore this fact and are yet to set out how landlords and commercial tenants should share the pain of lost income. Having a rent solution is more crucial than ever.

As the CEO of BOXPARK, I am in the unique position of being both a commercial landlord and operator, and I believe the extended moratorium is not helping either group.

It ignores the fact that at one point businesses will need to pay their rent and many won’t be able to. My question to the government is who is going to pick up that bill then?

I truly believe that at BOXPARK we will only succeed if our tenants succeed, which is why when lockdown hit we were one of the first commercial landlords to announce that we would not charge our tenants rent while they remained closed. Since reopening we have also begun to migrate some of our tenants to turnover rent. However, we cannot ignore the rent crisis any longer, which is why I am calling on the government to address this.

What we need as an industry is not more uncertainty. We need clear, consistent guidance from the government, as well as a solution for the rental crisis that can help us future-proof our businesses.