Bristol’s bar and restaurant owners have complained to the city council, claiming the way it has managed lifeline grants from the Government to cover the winter Omicron covid wave has been ‘a shambles’.
BARBI, the city’s independent bar and restaurant association, said scores of businesses in Bristol have missed out on getting thousands of pounds of Government grants, because council chiefs didn’t inform them about the grants, and closed the application process more than a month early compared to most other locations around the country.
Bristol City Council has yet to formally respond to Bristol Live’s inquiries about the debacle, but a council officer did say the application window was closed on February 14 to give officers enough time to process the applications. Almost all other local authorities in major towns and cities still have their grant schemes open.
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When the Omicron wave of Covid-19 hit Britain in December, pubs, bars and restaurants were hit by a huge drop in trade because people stayed at home, but there was no formal covid lockdown.
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 support as the Omicron wave took hold, but the Governmen ruled out any formal closure rules or furlough support.
Ultimately, the Government responded and initiated a new grant to help the hospitality industry through the winter, called the Omicron Hospitality and Leisure Grant, designed to help businesses who lost custom because of covid in the run-up to and over Christmas and the New Year. Like previous hospitality industry grants, they were administered by local authorities, with businesses required to fill out forms and show how much trade they had lost.
The grants were modest - of £2,700, £4,000 or £6,000 depending on the size of the venue - but hospitality bosses in Bristol said they would be a ‘lifeline’ for many who were still open, and paying staff over Christmas and the New Year, but saw a drastic drop in the numbers of people who visited.
The Government has set a deadline of March 18 on applications being submitted through local councils. Almost all local authorities still have their own individual application windows still open, telling hospitality businesses in places like Nottingham, Newcastle, Bournemouth, Coventry and Leeds that they can apply up until March 18. Those that have already closed their applications, including Bristol's neighbouring authorities of South Gloucestershire and North Somerset, did so on February 28.
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But in Bristol, council chiefs at City Hall closed the grant application scheme on February 14. Brendan Murphy, the co-founder of BARBI, the restaurant and bar association in Bristol, said that was a huge issue and meant many businesses had missed out - but also claimed the council had also failed to inform many in the hospitality industry of the grants in the first place.
“They did not bother to notify businesses that are due the grant by letter, or even by email,” he claimed. “It’s an absolute shambles. To say the hospitality industry in Bristol is p***ed off is an understatement. Their database is terribly out of date anyway, but they know who they paid other Covid grants to last time.
“Loads of bar and restaurant owners just weren’t told about this. I have no idea why they have closed the applications so quickly. They say they are short-staffed, but most other councils are still taking applications in. I think Manchester’s closed on February 28, but no others closed it so early, in the middle of February,” he added.
“It’s a shambles. It’s not like we haven’t told them about this over and over again, every time there’s a grant or something they have to administer through to central Government. This is their job.
“They don’t understand the implications of something like this on many, many businesses in Bristol who need this to keep going,” he said.
In their formal complaint to the council, BARBI said Bristol City Council had failed the hospitality industry in Bristol.
“BARBI believe that Bristol City Council have a duty of care to the businesses in the region and this has been amiss during the allocation of grants,” they said. “There have been instances previously where businesses were not informed of their eligibility and have lost out on much needed income. We would have hoped that lessons had been learnt in advance of the latest funding that has been made available.
“Communication of the scheme is simply not good enough. Not everyone is on social media, or members of a number of the organisations you have listed. You mentioned WECA and it begs the question of why the other councils aside from Bristol were able to run the application for an additional two weeks, and more if opening dates taken into account,” they added.
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.
No one from Bristol City Council has formally responded to Bristol Live’s inquiries about the grant window closing more than a month early.
Bristol Live understands that the BEIS, the Government department issuing the grants, initially set a deadline of February 28 for applications for the cash, and then extended that to March 18. Almost all other councils in the country followed suit, except Bristol.
But in a response to BARBI, a senior council officer claimed that processing the applications took a long time.
“The date of the 18th of March set by BEIS is the date that all applications need to have been assessed and sent for payment,” the senior council officer told BARBI in response to their complaint.
“To enable us to meet this deadline the closing date for applications of 14th February 2022 was fixed so that we would be able to undertake the extensive company and bank checks that are required, collect further information from applicants as necessary and assess all applications in a timely manner.
“The grant schemes were launched in the national media and we widely promoted the business support grants by sharing information with the Mayor's office, councillors, the One City economy board, and together with our city partners, including WECA, Business West, BSWN and the Federation of Small Businesses, produced and distributed a range of communications. This was felt to be a more effective way of engaging with potential applicants, than would have been achieved by a postal mailshot,” she added.
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