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'I don’t think we've fully appreciated what we've done. We have done something that could be far worse than what we are trying to avoid'
www.telegraph.co.uk
Lifting lockdown can't come soon enough for many across the country. While the tragic cost of the pandemic in terms of lives lost has frequently been foregrounded, the cost of the ongoing restrictions has been harder to quantify and often overlooked.
Business owners, mental health and education experts, families, sport coaches and care home managers are now pleading with the Prime Minister to recognise this toll and allow safe reopening as soon as possible.
Here are some of their responses and experiences:
Michael Caines, chef/patron of Lympstone Manor, Devon
I don’t think it’s extreme, nor is it scaremongering, to say that the
hospitality industry is teetering on the edge.
My flagship is Lympstone Manor, a contemporary hotel within an historic country manor house in East Devon, with a vineyard and Michelin-starred restaurant. I’m all set to open another, in Exmouth, which is ready to go. I’m just waiting for the nod from the Government. So much depends on what measures the Prime Minister unveils in his roadmap on Monday.
The brutal truth is that businesses such as mine will not survive an extended lockdown. I hope soon to be able to reopen my hotels and restaurants, in a timely manner, ready for the Easter holidays. Easter is crucial, as well as trade into the summer and beyond. But I fear that we are being hit by so many different directions.
There’s a lack of overseas flights into the UK, which normally produce the tourist and business clients that fuel city centre hotels and restaurants. Right now, the events sector is nonexistent. Our supply chains have also been decimated. Every week, we’re writing off food stock. Meanwhile, we’re all running on cash reserves.
When we’ve been open, we’ve been really busy. But we cannot escape the reality that, over the past 12 months, many businesses have only traded for six of them, at a reduced capacity due to social distancing and enforced curfews. Meanwhile, many have taken on significant loans to stay afloat, loans that will ultimately need to be paid back.
There have been some positives, such as the cut on VAT. But right now, 85 per cent of my staff are on furlough, and face the prospect that they might not have a business to go back to work for. All the while that our doors are closed, we are haemorrhaging cash.
If other countries open up and British people start going abroad while the domestic market is still closed, that’ll be a loss that won’t easily be replaced.
Where before this lockdown there was optimism, now increasingly I see despair. It has been very frustrating not to have had a roadmap to be able to plan a way out of this crisis and, most importantly, support our sector over the coming years as it seeks to balance its books while the entire economy is itself on a tightrope.
Sarah Lloyd, 40, mother-of-two from in Farnborough, Hampshire
I have hit absolute burnout. My husband works full-time from home and I run my own business, Indigo Soul PR, while we simultaneously try to
homeschool our two daughters, aged seven and five.
It has affected all four of us badly. My two girls are just so pent up and angry all the time, and at one point were even refusing to go out for a walk because they were so upset. They usually get on so well, but at the moment it’s constant tantrums and fights because they just feel so pent up. I really worry about the long-term impact on their mental health.
It’s so tough for us trying to teach them, too. We each do three hours a day of schooling around work. I have my own business so it’s nearly impossible. I’ve been up at four in the morning answering emails and staying up late trying to talk to clients in the US, too.
My business took a huge hit in the first pandemic and I lost a couple of big clients. I was just picking it back up again at the end of the year and finally getting back on my feet when the third lockdown came and schools were closed. I couldn’t believe it was happening. I am close to breaking point and I’ve never cried this much in my life.
It felt so unnecessary and cruel when they shut the schools in January. It’s not just education, my children are missing out on so much crucial social time, and placing an untold strain on my husband and me.
Last weekend was really rock bottom: I was just so exhausted that I couldn’t get out of bed. The sooner that this lockdown opens and schools reopen, the better.