Declan’s policy blog:
Earlier this week, on a gloomy January morning which epitomised some of the gloom surrounding the hospitality sector, we brought together a cohort of business leaders and stakeholders from local hospitality, to discuss our plans to launch a new Chamber hospitality forum.
Kindly hosted by Stoke-on-Trent College, some delegates braved the cold to join us, with others joining on line. What followed was 90 minutes of engaging discussion and sharing of experiences from a sector which has battled economic headwinds of spiralling labour and energy costs, staff recruitment/retention and food inflation.
We were joined by the Chair of UK Hospitality (Kate Nicholls) and Kate shared some sobering statistics about hospitality, with an estimated one third of medium sized businesses trading on or below break-even levels. Even some of the UK’s largest cities (including London) are not immune from the challenges faced in hospitality.
Staffordshire Chambers’ of Commerce is the voice of local business and we very much hope that our new hospitality forum can serve as a voice for a sector which offers such a diverse mix in our county, from cocktails to craft beers, from spa breaks to sumptuous dining.
Saturday 4th July 2020 – 103 long days after Boris Johnson announced that we had to stay at home with the pandemic taking a grip in the UK, it was agreed that pubs and restaurants could open their doors to customers. It was a time for families and friends to come together and it helped to underline the real value of hospitality.
Our new forum will provide a regular space for hospitality stakeholders to come together, discuss challenges, highlight opportunities and work collectively on solutions. We also hope it will ensure that the realities facing the sector are better understood by partners and policymakers, as well as our locally elected politicians.
Just days ago, the government announced a 15% cut in business rates for pubs and music venues in England for the next financial year. This is welcome news but more needs to be done to protect the wider mix of hospitality businesses who are facing huge pressures.
Immediate reform of the business rates system would certainly be a step in the right direction with a move to annual revaluations, to give greater certainty around rateable value changes and adopt a single flat rate 40p multiplier.
We very much hope that our hospitality forum will be a forward step with open dialogue, sharing of experiences and doing all we can to give a helping hand to a sector which plays such an important role in our lives.
The forum is open to Chamber members only. If you would like to get involved or have a conversation about how Chamber membership can help to grow your business, feel free to send me an e-mail:
declan.riddell@staffordshirechambers.co.uk
