HU demands urgent rescue package for NW hospitality

Hospitality Ulster (HU) has called for a financial rescue package to be made available to those hospitality businesses in the Derry City & Strabane District Council area affected by new, tighter Coronavirus restrictions.

Since yesterday (Monday), hospitality businesses in the region – where virus infections have surged in recent days – have been limited to takeaway, delivery and restricted outdoor dining and all cultural attractions have been closed.

Trade body, Hospitality Ulster, said today that the entire industry was standing with colleagues in the north-west with the message, ‘You are not alone’.

‘Our industry faces many challenges across the province, sustainability being one of them. The hospitality industry in Derry and Strabane is fighting for its survival today as restrictions are now in place that effectively amount to a lockdown of the sector,’ said HU chief executive, Colin Neill.

Mr Neill said that effectively, businesses in the area were now in the same position they had been at the outset of the crisis in March and that a substantial rescue package was essential to mitigate the losses that would be sustained over the next two weeks.

‘Allowing only 15 people maximum indoors gives the illusion that the sector s open, but the stark reality is that it cannot and has effectively been given no option but to be better off shut,’ he went on.

‘The north-west has an economic disaster on its hands and it is imperative for those in the sector to get immediate aid and support. This is not a time for procrastination. We need money and support directed to those in the industry who are rapidly losing hope for their businesses and their employees at the front end of the newly imposed restrictions across the council area.’

Niall McDermott, who owns two wet pubs in the city – The Phoenix and The Park Bar – told LCN today (Tuesday) that he’d had little option but to close his premises when the tighter coronavirus restrictions took effect.

‘We were only able to open our doors on September 23 and then we had to close again yesterday,’ he confirmed. ‘We do have an off-licence at one of the bars and it’s doing a bit of business but if it hadn’t been for the furlough scheme, there would definitely have been job losses.’

Niall, who employs 12 full and part-time staff, said that as soon as he learned of plans to introduce new, tighter measures in the north-west, he thought, ‘Here we go again.’

‘The whole thing is just up the left and all [these restrictions] will do is force more people into going to house parties rather than to the bar where there is a controlled environment.’

He also said that he was ‘very worried’ about the prospects for his business going forward:

‘Furlough is coming to a close at the end of October and I don’t think that the new scheme which is coming in is worth talking about,’ he added. ‘I am very concerned about what is going to happen between now and Christmas.’

Niall believes that a two-week ‘circuit breaker’ lockdown is also a distinct possibility and says that he has little option now but to wait for the situation to improve:

‘Hopefully the rate of infection will slow down and we’ll be able to get opened up again…hopefully.’