Scarborough hospitality businesses 'disappointed' at restriction delay

Hospitality businesses in Scarborough say they are disappointed the lifting of restrictions is due to be postponed.

Author: Karen LiuPublished 14th Jun 2021

Hospitality businesses in Scarborough say they are disappointed the lifting of restrictions is due to be postponed.

Boris Johnson is expected to announce a four-week delay to the final part of the roadmap of lockdown.

It is reported this may now not happen till July the 19th.

John Senior, Chairman of the South Bay Traders' Association, said:

"Naturally we're all very disappointed. We'd all been pinning our hopes on getting things back to normal and everything was geared up for that, so to hear that it's going to delayed for a month is very disappointing. We just hope that the reasoning behind all this is serious enough to warrant the problems that are going to be passed on to the public.

"At the moment we're working on a limited capacity. In our own restaurants we're down by two thirds so we'd be looking to easing some of that back, not all of it back I don't think, but some of it back and I think that has a knock on effect to hiring more staff and that is challenge in itself at the moment. We'd have liked a bit more notice.

"There is a vaccination programme going forward which should protect us from the variants and if it doesn't, we're going to be facing further lockdowns and I think that is quite terrifying for not just for our industry, but for the country in general and if the vaccine does work against these variants, then we just need to get on with life.

"I think lives obviously come first which is where we've been for the last 14 months, that's why we've suffered 2-3 lockdowns already and potentially there may be some more to come. What I'm trying to drill down is what the Government are actually saying beacuse in one breath they're saying the vaccine works against the variants and the next they're locking us down again."

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