Coronavirus

[kerry davies]

OK, let's try again.

Anyone running a business please fill this in at the request of DCMS. We have already seen some small responses to industry lobbying so please keep up the pressure.

[ImagineerTom]

I’ve completed it but that is a terrible survey that seems obsessed with business rates.

 

My company (like many others in this sector) have CONSIDERABLE outgoings each month that aren’t business rates or staff wages - we are signed up to various purchase contracts that we have to meet, we have standing charges and “mothballed” operating costs of around £30k/month after the rates relief and the limited support that staff salary support provides. There is NO support in place for this and we have all work for at least 6 months cancelled - our accountant recons we should expect to spend half a million quid riding this out

[stories]

And rather weirdly all the help listed so far is contingent on being a business with dedicated (and substantial) physical business premises that are exclusively used by you. So most industry creatives (who tend to operate out of shared studios or “maker spaces”) don’t qualify, running a home business doesn’t qualify.... there’s still a lot of gaps in this plan

 

The Government seems to have forgotten or overlooked a lot of aspects of running a business and/or been self employed in general (more so with out industry), where help is really needed, while banging their drum about the self-employed not paying the fair share of tax but getting equal help to PAYE... and sticking two fingers up at sole director ltd's paying themselves in dividends (imo they have a point there, but not the time for it and it's the tax system that needs to change.. not the individuals at fault).

 

My cynical opinion is they are catering to the largest voting demographic, majority of people are PAYE (help them) and stop the larger employers from going under. Anyone else is a minority and/or more self-starters who will deal with it and get on with it.

 

I'm curious how long all of this is going to go on for, almost seems like a normal day outside to day. my guess is not that much longer, but there will be hefty restrictions on mass gatherings for a significant amount of time still and that will really hit our sector.

 

Stay safe!

 

s

[sandall]

….. almost seems like a normal day outside to day.

Curious how this varies from place to place. In my bit of W London the roads are like 3 am & the pavements are almost empty, as are the busses (hence my alarm in another thread about being trapped on crowded busses only a few miles nearer town). On the other hand, I've just heard from family on the edge of Bognor Regis that today was the first day the roads weren't very busy. I guess the message that keeping your distance might save your life as well as other people's might be starting to get through, but only very, very s-l-o-w-l-y.

 

The Government seems to have forgotten or overlooked a lot of aspects of running a business and/or been self employed in general

If you've only ever worn a suit & drawn a salary it must be hard to understand the SE world if your only experience of it is cash-in-hand plumbers & "builders" or wealthy TV personalities posing as companies to save tax, neither of which you might think of as "deserving causes" (I'm only speculating here - the only time I had to sit behind a desk I couldn't wait to get back to "real" work).

Edited April 4, 2020 by sandall

[kerry davies]

This situation is not going to change soon. Her indoors has a fair network of medical friends including some ICU consultants and they reckon the disease is working it's way along the M4 from London/Heathrow/the ports and will not peak in Mid-Wales until sometime in June. It may well be safe to lift lockdown in major English cities sometime in May but if the disease is still rampant in rural areas I wouldn't give much for the chances of incomers getting a welcome.

 

News from China is bad in that people who were hospitalised and tested clear have been re-infected and re-hospitalised. It is all very vague and may be faulty testing however Japan has seen re-infection so this may run and run without a vaccine.

 

Meanwhile; HERE is some more stuff to contemplate. And one of their SLIDE SHOWSto keep you entertained.

[Stuart91]

News from China is bad in that people who were hospitalised and tested clear have been re-infected and re-hospitalised. It is all very vague and may be faulty testing however Japan has seen re-infection so this may run and run without a vaccine.

 

It's possible that vulnerable people may be encouraged to stay in lockdown/quarantine longer, so that the rest of the economy can start moving again. Clearly we can't stay in lockdown forever, and varying the restrictions geographically is fraught with all sorts of potential problems.

[stories]

….. almost seems like a normal day outside to day.

Curious how this varies from place to place. In my bit of W London the roads are like 3 am & the pavements are almost empty, as are the busses (hence my alarm in another thread about being trapped on crowded busses only a few miles nearer town). On the other hand, I've just heard from family on the edge of Bognor Regis that today was the first day the roads weren't very busy. I guess the message that keeping your distance might save your life as well as other people's might be starting to get through, but only very, very s-l-o-w-l-y.

 

The Government seems to have forgotten or overlooked a lot of aspects of running a business and/or been self employed in general

If you've only ever worn a suit & drawn a salary it must be hard to understand the SE world if your only experience of it is cash-in-hand plumbers & "builders" or wealthy TV personalities posing as companies to save tax, neither of which you might think of as "deserving causes" (I'm only speculating here - the only time I had to sit behind a desk I couldn't wait to get back to "real" work).

 

In my part of the world (leafy commuter market town..): It's been like a scene from 28 days later up until the end of this week just gone, suns come out and people are venturing out a LOT more this weekend. Everything is still sensible for the most part though (save the odd groups of youths..).

 

I think the key to all of this is common sense and being sensible, I don't see the harm in going out to sunbath or have a picnic for an hour, provided people are sensible and observe the social distancing and aren't displaying any symptoms (Provided your local area has the space vs population). The observation I have is that this virus thrives in densely packed areas like London where everyone is on top of each other and squished in to public transport, so common sense being to asses each area on it's own merits.

 

 

Wee bit worrying though when the Chancellor of the Exchequer and HMRC do not understand the SE world, it's there business to understand it...... (and they should have more experience than just the cash in hand plumber, they certainly get my SA return every year.. at great expense to my business might I add!!).

 

I took great exception to the jab made at the SE: saying we don't pay our fair share of tax... then adding suggestion the SE help package is on par with the PAYE help package (which they keep adding more benefits too might I add..).... And add to that he's an MP, thus he is most likely more versed in 'taking the pi$$' when it comes to claiming expenses than most 'cash in hand' tradesmen or TV Celebrities........

 

While I think the Self-employed help is ok, and welcome it over nothing, it does fall short of reality of quite a few SE people (though not all as we are a wide and complex demographic) who actually operate as a business and not just a part-time workers...

 

s

[sandall]

I think the key to all of this is common sense and being sensible, I don't see the harm in going out to sunbath or have a picnic for an hour, provided people are sensible and observe the social distancing

Totally agree, but I just wish the police could be a bit more reasonable. 3000 people in Brockwell Park yesterday, so like Victoria Park last week (also a huge Victorian park with big high gates) it's now locked. I know it well - it's enormous, probably 500,000 m2. That's about 167 m2 per person, or approx. 26m (2x13) spacing if they all spread out (ok, it's not all open space, but it could hold vastly more than 3000 if they were all sensible). So rather than doing more patrols & fining or arresting a few groups of idiots they have now deprived tens of thousands of people of somewhere green to exercise & (maybe just as important) clear their heads. I wonder how long it will be before someone sitting on a bench in my local park gets spotted & the hazard tape goes up at the entrances.

[paulears]

But that's exactly the problem - you stay in groups of 2 max, and to get INTO the park you pass people. Every time I go to the supermarket, you space outside, but everyone crosses back and forth inside. Parks also have wind, so maybe the 2m should be 10m? The idea is to prevent places becoming public gatherings and parks are exactly that. People having picnics for goodness sake - that's just plain stupid. Stay at home. If you go out for exercise, go place where others don't. The shops should be the most dangerous, but picnics and sunbathing? Really?

 

It's just our ignorance, our obsession with rights and a terrible attitude. What part of staying at home do people not get? It's not stay at home unless it's a nice day, and then it's somebody else's fault if they cough on you? If you weren't there it wouldn't happen.

[d_korman]

I'm in SW London on the Surrey border. Roads here very quiet. I live opposite a small park and it is pretty empty, no problem staying well apart. I also live near a huge park, and again, plenty of people out but it is so huge that there is no problem maintaining much more than 2m separation.

 

 

Regaqrding the wind, this was asked on of the TV phone-ins and apparently the wind disperses the virus so 2m is Ok.

[sandall]

Exercise isn't a luxury Paul (though running & jogging on public paths might be considered as such) - for many people, particularly the more "senior" of us and those with mental health issues, getting out into green spaces at least once a day is an absolute essential. The key thing is maintaining distance (so I quite happily tolerate the odd person sitting in the sun well away from paths in my local park, or the elderly couples sat on benches), though it's not always easy when food shopping, or when joggers come panting up behind you on narrow pavements.

[kerry davies]

Some confusion here? Yes exercise is vital, that's why it is allowed. Going outside to sit down is not exercise and merely encourages others to gather and sit in the sun. We know the virus hangs around for hours and days on various surfaces so it must lurk awhile in grass.

 

Out here in the sticks the bad feelings towards the urban English are increasingly virulent and it didn't take the Covid Symptom Tracker to tell us what we knew from experience; second home owners are as self-obsessed as they are stupid.

Stay safe, stay home.

Second home owners on Anglesey ‘brought virus with them’ – Times

[Gerry]

.. Yes exercise is vital, that's why it is allowed. ..

You are lucky.

Here in Spain, it is a total lockdown.

Can only go out, on your own, to buy food or medicines.

I live outside a town so I can have a walk outside my house as nobody is near me to see me.

Feel sorry for those who live in apartment blocks that are very common in towns.

No outside space except for very small terraces.

Must drive them mad being shut in with small kids who want to go outside to play as most apartment blocks have a kids playground attached.

Cheers

Gerry

[kerry davies]

Stay safe, Gerry. Today we got her indoors' letter from the Welsh CMO telling her to stay indoors for 12 weeks as a "shielded vulnerable person".

 

We also finally got a message from Tesco saying they couldn't offer us a delivery slot for months because we are not on the vulnerable list which they were sent from HMG Westminster and only contains the details of English vulnerable people.

 

[sandall]

Going outside to sit down is not exercise....

 

….. second home owners are as self-obsessed as they are stupid.

A bit sweeping, Kerry.

I am lucky in that I am fit enough to take a walk without needing a sit down before returning home. A lot of elderly people trying to take daily exercise aren't that lucky (in my local park they mostly favour the benches set back from the paths, so distancing is no problem). Yes, there's a risk from touching things, hence the now largely vanished message "WASH YOUR HANDS".

 

I can't comment on the situation in Wales, as the only (Welsh-born) second-home owner I knew retired there more than 10 years ago, but we (not being unduly self-obsessed, or I hope, stupid) have deliberately kept away from our South Coast retreat since long before the lock-down, & refused to allow it to be used to isolate an apparently healthy grandson on his way home from university in plague-ridden London to "virus-free" Sussex, because of the potential risk of infecting elderly neighbours. Second-home owners are an easy target for vilification (particularly in Wales for some reason), but it's worth remembering that while getting little or no value out of local services they mostly pay 100% Council Tax to support those who do.