The owner of one of Brighton’s most iconic landmarks condemned a second lockdown as ‘catastrophic’ yesterday, as the company reports a 29.4 percent loss in annual revenue.
By Matthew Meehan
Luke Johnson, owner of The Brighton Pier Group, attacked the government’s decision as ‘profoundly disappointing,’ with Boris Johnson seeking to reinforce measures that had previously failed to achieve coronavirus eradication.
He said that the collateral damage on the economy both local and national would produce a ‘never ending cycle of mass unemployment, suicide and bankruptcy’ that the country and local companies like his may struggle to recover from.
As a result of such crises, Luke Johnson has insisted that the ‘devastation’ expected will be irreparable and that local people should contact their MP’s to vote against lockdown. Despite this outcry, the three local MP’s- Lloyd Russell-Moyle and Peter Kyle of Labour as well as Caroline Lucas, leader of the Green Party have all publicly supported a second lockdown and indicated that it should have in fact happened sooner.
The group reported annual trading losses of 9.4 million across its whole holdings that include 8 mini golf courses, 12 bars and its main Brighton Pier location, with many staff being laid off during the first pandemic lockdown and all other staff and management were made to take pay cuts in order to deal with the impact.
This response echoed what is a vocal consensus throughout the business community, with other local Brighton entrepreneurs having voiced their concerns over further losses to their already struggling business. On a national scale, there is great anger towards what is described as ‘untold damage’ that will put an unbearable strain on very fragile communities such as Brighton, especially going into the crucial and lucrative Christmas period where Michael Gove has refused to rule out the possibility of the new lockdown period extending past the official December 2nd benchmark.
However, despite having much lower infection figures than other major cities such as Manchester and London, Brighton has seen large, rapid increases in its own R rate which would suggest the need for greater intervention.
Alistair Hill, the Director of Public Health for Brighton, has declared that ‘the city is at tipping point’ with 441 new cases in the past week, indicating a 60 percent increase versus the previous week. Since October 6th, the infection rate has risen dramatically from 20 to 30 cases per 100,000 residents up to 157 – an increase of over 500 percent in less than a month.
However, Pier boss Mr Johnson maintains that lockdown is not the appropriate solution as the ‘loss of jobs, damage to mental health and harm to education plus the national finance and illness treatment impact will cause a much greater hardship’.
Instead, Johnson has proposed that the Government and SAGE advisors need to change their strategy and focus on protecting the vulnerable by applying while the low-risk remainder of the population resume work and go about their lives as normal.
Despite these concerns, The Brighton Pier Group reported ‘better than expected’ trading result in the period between 4th July and the end of October which was supported due to the mitigated impact the company achieved through utilising the furlough scheme.
Chief Executive of the group, Anne Ackford stated: ‘The Covid 19 pandemic has caused unprecedented challenges, and while the loss of trade is disappointing, I am proud of how the team has responded to be financially strong in such uncertain times’.
