South Yorkshire nightlife businesses "hanging on to survival" amid fears over roadmap delay
Some scientists want the final lifting of restrictions to be put back
We're told some South Yorkshire nightlife businesses are hanging on to survival "by their fingernails" as they wait to hear if Covid restrictions will end on 21st or not.
There are fears the Indian variant might lead to a delay in the lifting of the rules, which would allow nightclubs to open and bars to increase to full capacity.
Some scientists have urged the government to put back the easing.
Nick Simmonite, chair of Unight which represents Sheffield's nightime community, says some businesses are relying on the last stage of the lockdown roadmap to survive:
"The ones that have survived this far, some of them are hanging on just by their fingernails at the minute. Those of us that have managed to survive, every day counts. Could we push it back a week? Yeah, probably, if we had to. If we absolutely had to.
"You've got commercial landlords knocking on the door already saying, 'it's due, time to pay the rent', you've got the council sending court summons out for unpaid business rates.
"So there's a perfect storm of reasons to just chuck it all in, and I daresay there'll be businesses doing that if we don't get open."
The Prime Minister said yesterday there was nothing in the data at the moment to suggest the lifting of restrictions would have to be delayed, but that the picture is "ambiguous".
The government has said it will make a decision on 14th June whether the final unlocking will go ahead a week later.
Nick says nightlife businesses in Sheffield need more certainty - and to prepare for big events in the summer like Tramlines festival in July:
"I'm confident-ish that we will be open on 21st June. But confident-ish doesn't help us plan. A good number of our operators exist in that space at the minute where they can operate as bars but for our colleagues in nightclubs, they absolutely need some certainty about whether it is going to be 21st June.
"We've got to put our systems under stress and make them fall over on a busy-ish Saturday evening. Because come Tramlines, when all the pubs are going full-pelt, your PA system's been working at max for the last 12 hours, I think we probably need those systems stress-testing."