Restaurant and gym bosses cheer Budget moves but plea for Government help on ‘existential threat’ of evictions

The hospitality sector has been campaigning for months for support - and received much of what bosses asked for in Wednesday’s Budget (Getty)

(Getty Images)

Hospitality and leisure sector bosses today welcomed the Budget as giving "the first real ray of economic sunshine" since the pandemic hit, but warned that it failed to address the "existential threat" of unpaid rent bills.

Pubs, bars, restaurants and gyms have racked up huge debts to landlords while closed. A moratorium on commercial evictions is due to come to an end on March 31. It has been rumoured that this will be extended until July, but bosses are also calling on the Government to help broker a solution to the issue.

In his Budget on Wednesday, Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced the extension of the furlough scheme to the end of September, the extension of business rates relief until July, and an extension of the 5% reduced rate of VAT extended to the hospitality and tourism sectors until October.

UKHospitality chief executive, Kate Nicholls, has said "rent remains the big missing piece of the jigsaw on the road to recovery".

Serial sector investor Hugh Osmond has labelled it an "existential threat”, and Des Gunewardena, boss of fine dining group D&D London, warned that the while the Budget "gives us the first real ray of economic sunshine since the Covid closure of our venues a year ago...the rent issue has not been addressed".

Gunewardena, whose group is behind London institutions including Quaglino’s and the Bluebird cafes, hopes Government support on the issue "will be dealt with in a separate announcement".

Neil Randall, boss of gym franchise Anytime Fitness which has more than 165 UK outlets, said the Budget's "notably disappointing omission was the lack of support around relationships between commercial landlords and tenants, with spiralling rent arrears being the most significant debts that leisure operators are having to navigate".

Gunewardena added that the increased financial contribution required from companies to furlough payments from July "will be a problem for most businesses".

It came as Revolution Bars boss Rob Pitcher said that while the UK's battered night time economy "remains on the critical list", the Budget has helped bosses see "the light at the end of the tunnel is getting brighter" - and JD Wetherspoon revealed it plans to open hundreds of beer gardens next month.

Revolution, which entered a company voluntary arrangement (CVA) restructuring plan last year that saw the firm cut 130 jobs, permanently shut six sites and reduce rents on seven other bars, is currently burning through around £400,000 a week in lockdown.

The firm said measures announced in the Budget will allow the firm "to regain a financial position from which it can again develop and thrive", and it plans to open 20 of its 66 Revolution and Revolucion de Cuba bars from April 12 - the date set out in Boris Johnson's roadmap for hospitality to begin serving outdoors again - with the remainder set to reopen on May 17.

A Government spokesperson noted that it has published "a Code of Practice to help negotiations between landlords and tenants", and said: “Further guidance will be published on this shortly and we continue to work closely with both commercial landlords and tenants on these issues.”