Council chiefs at City Hall have reopened the system which allows bars, clubs and restaurants in Bristol to apply for a lifeline Government Covid grant, after Bristol Live highlighted the fury of the city's hospitality industry that it had closed.
Yesterday, representatives from BARBI, Bristol's independent bar and restaurant association, told Bristol Live of their fury that while business owners right across the country could still apply for the Government's Omicron Hospitality and Leisure Grant, in Bristol, council chiefs had closed the window for applications on February 14.
The grants are potentially worth a valuable £10,000 to cover lost trade over Christmas and New Year when the Omicron wave of Covid devastated the hospitality industry, but Brendan Murphy, the co-founder of BARBI, said the council's handling of the applications was 'a shambles'.
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But now, after Bristol Live reported on the fury of bar and restaurant owners in the city, the council have conducted a U-turn, and announced they are re-opening the application window - but only for today (Friday) and Monday.
This will give bar, club and restaurant owners another two days to apply - a lengthy process as they have to provide full account and taking details from December and January this winter, and comparable previous pre-Covid festive periods.
The saga began when the Omicron wave of Covid-19 swept the country in December. The Government refused to instigate any full lockdown, or announce new restrictions on the hospitality industry, but people took their own actions and bars and restaurants reported cancelled bookings and empty pubs and tables as the Government's health chiefs advised people to stay away from crowds. The lack of a formal lockdown meant hospitality businesses affected weren't entitled to the kind of financial compensation they had been in previous lockdowns, and Bristol Live reported how, a week before Christmas, a coalition of business leaders in Bristol - backed by the council and local politicians - wrote to the Chancellor Rishi Sunak pleading for financial support.
Mr Sunak responded just a couple of days before Christmas, and announced what became the Omicron Hospitality and Leisure Grant. Applications for that opened in January and, like previous Covid support grants for businesses, were administered through local authorities.
When it was opened, a deadline was set for all applications to reach the Government by February 28, and Bristol City Council set its own deadline for bars and restaurants to apply of February 14, to give staff at City Hall two weeks to process the hundreds of applications.
The Government then announced it was extending the deadline to March 18, because business leaders across the country had said the process of applying was a lengthy one and many businesses would need more time to assess and prove just how much trade they had lost over the Christmas and New Year period.
Almost all local authorities then extended their own deadlines - and cities across the country still have applications open until March 18. But Bristol City Council didn't - and BARBI told Bristol Live yesterday how it had complained that not only had Bristol's deadline already passed, but hundreds of businesses hadn't even been told by the council about the grant scheme in first place.
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Just this week, another Bristol restaurant announced it was closing because of the pandemic and the lack of support from the Government. Richard Avison, of 99 Queens a Clifton Triangle restaurant which officially - according to TripAdvisor - served the best breakfasts in Bristol, said he was heartbroken to have to close following the latest Omicron wave over the winter hitting his business.
After Bristol Live's article yesterday, Thursday March 3, Bristol City Council announced it was reopening the application window. In a statement, a spokesperson from Bristol City Council said: “A window of three weeks was given to local businesses to apply for the Omicron Hospitality and Leisure Grant (OHLG) to allow for all funding applications to be assessed and paid by the original government deadline of 28 February.
"Now that window has been extended, we have re-opened applications to the OHLG scheme until 5pm on Monday 7 March. This will support the small number of businesses who were unable to apply within the original deadline," she added.
A spokesperson for the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, who are running the scheme for the Government confirmed to Bristol Live that when the Omicron grant scheme was first opened, the initial deadline was February 28, but the announcement that it would be extended for another three weeks into March was made on January 20, not 'now'.
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