Businesses in the hospitality and licensed on trade brace themselves for more closures, with the possible exception of offering takeaway facilities as 8 more regions moved into tier 3.
Speaking in the House of Commons today health secretary Matt Hancock outlined 8 regions to be placed into tier 3 this weekend.
From 12:01 19th December:
· Bedfordshire
· Buckinghamshire
· Berkshire
· Peter Borough
· Herefordshire
· sorry (with the exception of Waverley)
· Hastings and Rother
· Portsmouth, Gosport and Havant
Will all be placed into tier 3, the strictest measure, and will follow London part of Herefordshire and Essex who are moving into tier 3 following an announcement on Monday.
UKHospitality has warned the placing more regions into tier 3 will bring further despair to already hard-pressed businesses.
UKHospitality Chief Executive Kate Nicholls said: “Placing more areas into tier 3 is only going to ruin Christmas for those businesses entering and continued despair and heartbreak for those hard-pressed businesses that had hoped they might move into tier 2.
“Businesses will have bought stock which will now go to waste and more people will lose work at a stressful time. Hotels are now facing a deluge of short-notice cancellations because of the tightening of restrictions. What was already looking like a bleak Christmas is now looking like a total write-off.
“This will be a bitter blow for businesses that would have been hoping to make the best of a difficult Christmas period. The increased restrictions, effectively a total shutdown for most, will make it even more difficult for businesses to salvage what little they can from what should be a busy period.
“More financial support most be forthcoming if we are to have any hope that these businesses will survive. They can trade their way out of danger next year only if they are still around to do so.”
