Following Boris Johnson’s announcement this weekend, and the introduction of Tier 4 in England, we are asking you for information to help lobby the Treasury for greater financial support.
Following this weekend’s announcement introducing a further Tier 4 to the England restrictions, we held a meeting on Saturday evening with the Department for Business outlining the immense impact such a short notice closure is going to have on hair and beauty businesses in the areas affected.
We once again conveyed that businesses already struggling to work under the current guidelines, only able to operate at 50-60% capacity even with a full appointment schedule due to the restrictions in place, were essentially given a few hours’ notice to cancel appointments, notify staff, prepare their business for extended closure, refund deposits – most likely without the funds to do so.
We have stressed repeatedly that the £2-3,000 grant does not even touch the sides in terms of covering the financial commitments salons and barbershops have in rent, rates, utilities, tax etc. Businesses have no savings left, their loans are already spent and businesses will close.
We have requested a meeting with the Treasury to give further detail on the financial impact on hair and beauty. To make our point as robustly as possible we need the figures to show the costs of having a salon/shop even before a client/customer comes through the door. We need the figures to show how much businesses would normally make this time of year to hit home the lost earnings. For this we urgently need your help.
To make our case to the Treasury, I am contacting to ask if you would provide us with:
1. your business costs before you even open your doors and what these are
2. your day to day running costs and what these are
3. your business’s estimated earnings for the period of December 2019
4. your profits for the last financial year
This information will be used confidentially but is essential if we are going to make a strong enough case for additional targeted support similar to that offered to sectors including hospitality and leisure, the arts and sports and leisure.
The plan is to present case studies outlining this information together with the other industry organisations to pass on to the Treasury in the next few days before Christmas.
