EERILY QUIET... AND ONLY A SKELETON SERVICE
WITH swathes of businesses across Scotland forced to close due to the pandemic there has not been much to lighten the mood.
However, one restaurant in Edinburgh has kept up with tradition despite being forced to close.
Staff at Hemingway’s Restaurant in Leith set up skeletons having a party inside the closed premises in a Halloween window display.
But while businesses are doing their best to cope, many say they need more financial help.
Ian Neale, who runs guided salmon fishing excursions and a B&B near Forres, Moray, has failed in his efforts to secure help from five Covid relief funds.
Reasons given for rejections include the fact he pays council tax instead of business rates, his choice to run his firm from a business bank account instead of a personal one and because he took a bank loan despite feeling he had no other option.
He said: ‘I’m always looking for funds we’re eligible for but can’t find anything. We keep falling through the cracks.’
Pub landlord Dave Barclay, 58, who runs the Airlie Street Bar in
Alyth, Perthshire, is only entitled to £1,000 of Government support despite the fact up to £2,155 is available for businesses in the Central Belt that can remain open with restrictions.
He said the fact he has no outdoor facilities or food sales means that he has no option but to temporarily close.
Establishments shut down by the Government can get £4,310. But because he can technically stay open he cannot claim this.
Mr Barclay said: ‘I have managed to keep staff on for now but I honestly don’t know how long that can last.’
The Scottish Government said it has offered businesses more than £2.3billion of support, including 100 per cent rates relief for pubs and restaurants for the year, as well as providing one-off grants to businesses, depending on rateable value, required to close by regulations.
It also argued it is ‘constrained by the fact that most of the key financial powers are reserved to the UK Government’.