50% of pubs 'may not open on 4 July'

The poll by HIM/MCA Insight, a division of The Morning Advertiser​​​​​’s​​ parent company William Reed Business Media, also revealed the other 50% were planning to reopen on the day Government has said is allowed​.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson confirmed pubs could reopen on 4 July with “one-metre plus” distancing measures in place.

One operator said the trade will be entering into the unknown upon reopening, with a combination of “social distancing fear from some of the public plus a drop in sales quite significantly”.

Crystal ball

Another said a crystal ball would be handy right now but all the trade can do is open and keep fingers crossed.

On cutting distancing measures, a business leader said it was no use reducing the two-metre rule to one-metre and imposing strict measures which may not be able to be implemented without loss of viability to the business.

Respondents were also asked  ‘how confident are you about the future of your business’ and almost half (48%) said they were quite confident and 4% were very confident.

Some 16% were confident about the future of their business but a third (32%) were not, with one operator saying: “It’s going to be a very hard journey out of this.”

Government handling

Most of those surveyed (54%) think the Government has handled the crisis as well as could be expected but almost one in four (39%) said it had been handled poorly, with 8% saying it had been dealt with well.

One operator said: “The Government has been very slack in getting pubs open, they just seemed clueless.”

Poll respondents included 331 founders or board level operators across pubs, restaurants and the food-to-go sector.