THE LOCKDOWN GHOST TOWNS

More than 1m hospitality and retail jobs may vanish by end of 2020

THE Covid- 19 catastrophe is creating ‘ghost towns’ across Britain and threatens to wipe out more than a million jobs, experts warned last night.

A record 11,120 household-name retail outlets and around 125,000 store jobs were lost after the first lockdown supercharged a move away from high streets.

However, this is just the tip of the iceberg, with fears the job loss total at shops, pubs and restaurants could soar as new lockdowns are rolled out this winter.

London, Essex and York were placed into Tier Two at the weekend, joining areas including Birmingham and Manchester, while Liverpool and Lancashire are already in the most stringent Tier Three.

Hospitality industry leaders say that as many as 750,000 jobs could go in their sector alone by early next year – and a total of 255,000 retail jobs could be lost by the end of 2020. Kay Neufeld, of the Centre for Economics and Business Research, said it was ‘plausible’ that there could be more than one million job losses in the retail and hospitality sectors alone.

The Social Market Foundation, an independent think-tank, said: ‘Reduced demand for office space, and a seemingly inevitable decline of traditional retail, risk creating ghost town and city centres.’ In other developments: The UK recorded another 16,982 Covid-19 cases, 32 per cent up from a week earlier – and a further 67 deaths;

Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham was last night considering an offer from No 10 of tens of millions of pounds to support businesses if the region agrees to go into Tier Three lockdown;

Government scientific adviser Sir Jeremy Farrar warned that Christmas will be ‘tough’ this year, with a vaccine for coronavirus still potentially six months away;

Michael Gove yesterday defended police being given personal data through NHS Test and Trace amid a furious privacy row;

Tony Blair was accused of breaching the UK’s 14-day quarantine rules after returning from a trip to the US;

Wales could be plunged into a full ‘circuit-breaker’ lockdown lasting 17 days under plans expected to be announced today.

The British Chambers of Commerce is warning of ‘hundreds of thousands of job losses’ amid the closure of the furlough scheme, which currently supports more than two million workers, this month. More than one in four of the UK’s 39,700 pubs may not survive the pandemic, according to the British Beer and Pub Association.

Greene King plans to close 79 pubs, putting 800 jobs at risk, while Young’s, Wetherspoons, Fuller’s and City Pub Company have all said they will cut several hundred staff.

Nick Mackenzie, of Greene King, said: ‘Pubs are becoming increasingly unviable.’ He added: ‘This means extending furlough to cover all hospitality venues hit by restrictions, not just those forced to close, extending the VAT cut and business rates holiday and cutting beer duty.’ Pub and restaurant

operator Mitchells & Butlers, which owns Harvester and All Bar One, said that the industry was facing ‘exceptionally challenging and uncertain circumstances’.

they added: ‘We strongly urge the Government to step up the level of support it is offering to an industry which has been repeatedly singled out and taken the full brunt of restrictions.’

the Government said it had already provided £200billion worth of support to help companies get through the crisis.

A spokesman said: ‘We know this continues to be a very difficult period for businesses. that’s why we have put in place a substantial package of support.’