CHARLES GRAHAM: Cautious welcome to hospitality comeback

While previous easings have been welcomed, I suspect Tuesday’s good news for the hospitality sector - including the cutting of the 2m rule so that it is in line with World Health Organisation recommendations and much more practical for pubs and restaurants - will have received the loudest public cheer for months.

We are, after all, social creatures by nature, and to have been deprived for months of simple, taken-for-granted pleasures such as going out for a meal at the end of a tough working week, has been difficult to bear.

But we and the affected businesses do need to approach these relaxations with no little caution. We must not lose sight of the possibility that too blasé an approach could have us all back down under full lockdown.

And we can’t expect all our old haunts to be back in business on July 4. In fact some may never re-emerge.

As if we needed reminding, Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce’s latest quarterly survey of businesses found that we are facing “an economic crisis like no other.”

For the number crunchers the GM Index, which is a combination of seven key measures, is at its lowest ever level (-31.7 compared with 31.9 in the first three months of this year) - a plunge of over 63 points.

Only 10 per cent of employers said they were trying to recruit staff, compared with 54 per cent in the first quarter of this year. And business confidence is low, with a massive 93 per cent of respondents concerned about volume or revenue and 51 per cent worried about capital and cash management.

In short, our economy is in a parlous state and there are forecasts that the recovery will be slower than originally hoped for, so less a V or U-shaped line on the graph: more a tick.

So there are many tough months if not years lying ahead.

But if people can get out there to spend and push money through the system again - and manage to do it without triggering a new upsurge in coronavirus cases - it’s a big step in the right direction.

For some though, a hair cut and sociable pint is nothing compared to seeing loved ones again and the further loosening of restrictions on family gatherings is to be even more greatly welcomed - at a safe distance of course.

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