The £2.5 billion in lease debt hanging across the neck of the hospitality business is a risk to the way forward for 1000’s of companies and over 330,000 sector jobs, new evaluation by UKHospitality has revealed.
A brand new survey of members, discovered that resolving the lease debt difficulty is vital to making sure the long run well being of a sector that pre-pandemic accounted for ten per cent of UK employment.
As a part of its submission the federal government, UKHospitality highlighted that greater than half of operators surveyed mentioned they haven’t had a lease discount from their landlord, regardless of extended durations of closure and over a 12 months of punitive buying and selling restrictions.
Different key findings embody:
- Some 52 per cent haven’t been given any extension to pay lease.
- A complete of 73 per cent are both unable or have no idea how they will pay their lease arrears.
- Some 40 per cent haven’t been capable of attain a take care of their landlord over lease concessions.
If the present protections which are in place are eliminated this summer season, the evaluation estimated {that a} sixth of the remaining hospitality workforce, equal to 332,000 jobs, might be misplaced.
This is able to be along with the a whole bunch of 1000’s of jobs already misplaced through the course of the pandemic.
Kate Nicholls, UKHospitality chief government, mentioned: “Our survey reveals that whereas a proportion of operators have been capable of strike a take care of their landlords on fee of lease debt, for a lot of there have been no concessions and little engagement on the problem.
“The problem of lease debt have to be resolved in a manner that shares the burden as companies merely can’t be anticipated to pay their lease arrears in full.
“That is why the federal government should take affirmative motion to assist hospitality rebuild and play its half within the financial restoration.
“There needs to be a sharing of the ache brought on by lockdowns and buying and selling restrictions.”
