I think many of us actively try to avoid giving too much attention to Stormont and its lack of activity. The old medical maxim “first do no harm” springs to mind, and that the best you can hope for is they don’t manage to make things worse. But then they take action and, in their own inimitable way, manage to make an already bad situation even more woeful.
For decades now, our high street businesses have been suffering with the changes to shopping patterns, such as the rise of online retailing plus changing entertainment habits. People aren’t going out as much, and many businesses suffer from this decline.
Just yesterday, local cafe chain Synge & Byrne announced the closure of all their locations across Northern Ireland. Many of you might be familiar with them from their cafes in Kilbrony and Sleave Gullion Park, as well as their site in the Harvey Norman store in Belfast. Former director Damien Garvey said:
“We are deeply sorry to have reached this situation. Despite our very best efforts to save the business, we have been unable to overcome the mounting difficulties we faced, not least the current market conditions impacting the hospitality sector, including soaring operating costs. This situation, combined with a growing debt burden, means we have no other option than to close our doors. We would like to thank the hundreds of talented and hard-working staff who have been part of our business over the past 12 years, as well as all the customers who supported us during that time.”
The general public is often sceptical about pubs, cafes, and restaurants pleading poverty, they see the £7 pints and the £4 coffees and ask the question: how on earth could they be losing money when they charge so much? Well, the problem is changes in consumer patterns. Bars are really only busy now on Friday and Saturday night, even somewhere like Belfast Cathedral Quarter a friend was in it last night, and he said it was utterly deserted. Now I know the weather was bad last night, and January is typically a slow month for pubs, but it is noticeable how even our most popular areas feel the hit.
Costs keep growing for hospitality. Minimum wage keeps going up, which is obviously a good thing for the employees, but as costs rise, those costs need to be passed on to the customer. As prices increase, people then buy less.
But the thing that really gets the goat of business owners is rates. The rates in Northern Ireland are astonishingly high. Before you even pull a pint or serve a coffee, you’re hit with a massive bill from the government. And many businesses literally get nothing in return for all this cash they have to hand over. They don’t even get their bins collected.
With the recent revaluation of rates, many businesses are facing massive rate increases. The BelTel reports:
A Belfast pub owner whose rates bills are due to go up almost fourfold said increases from the latest revaluation will put jobs at risk. Seatons of Sailortown will see its rates bill increase from around £10,000 to over £38,000, as hospitality businesses are hit hardest by Thursday’s draft rates revaluation by Land and Property Services (LPS). A number of hotels will see large rises, with the bill for the Slieve Donard in Newcastle, Co Down, going from £406,000 to around £1.25m. The Europa Hotel’s NAV is rising from £553,000 to £990,000 and that of Belfast’s Hilton Hotel, increasing from £389,000 to £760,000.
Those are the big names, but the rate rise will affect small businesses right across Northern Ireland. The upshot of all this is that already struggling businesses, pubs, cafes and restaurants are just going to close, leading to yet more blights on our high streets.
The rate system is incredibly unfair for local businesses. It is often one of the biggest expenses for many businesses. Running a business is hard at the best of times, but whenever it’s your own government shaking you down, it makes the whole situation even worse. In an ideal world, the system would be replaced by some kind of local sales tax, but that’s not likely to happen any time soon.
What can Stormont do? Well, we all know the answer to that: they are going to do absolutely nothing. Local businesses will close, and the very same politicians will be complaining about the dead high streets in their constituencies and the jobs lost.
I help to manage Slugger by taking care of the site as well as running our live events. My background is in business, marketing and IT. My politics tend towards middle-of-the-road pragmatism; I am not a member of any political party. When not stuck in front of a screen, I am a parkrun Run Director.
Discover more from Slugger O’Toole
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.