Pubs across the UK could remain closed until Christmas under coronavirus lockdown measures, landlords have warned.
Cabinet secretary Michael Gove this weekend said that pubs and restaurants will be ‘among the last’ to see lockdown restrictions lifted in a bid to prevent a second wave of the virus hitting Britons later this year.
Following the announcement, Frank Maguire from Truman’s brewery in London, told The Sun: ‘Things are looking pretty dire. At this rate it seems unlikely we will be open again before Christmas.’
He told the newspaper it would be a major blow to the industry to close for so long, particularly with the loss of football matches this summer which are ‘worth millions to the industry’.
When asked about what the country will look like when social distancing rules start to be lifted, Mr Gove told BBC One’s The Andrew Marr Show on Sunday: ‘We have stressed that the reporting in today’s newspapers that schools will reopen on May 11, that is not true, we have not made that decision
Today Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden attempted to steer away from any set dates for lockdown to ease and called the reports pubs will stay shut until Christmas ‘pure speculation’. But he warned that easing up on restrictions too early could mean ‘even more draconian measures’ further down the line.
Mr Dowden told the BBC: ‘We’re all desperate to end this lockdown. ‘But we need to do it in a sensible way because the worst thing we could possibly do is to prematurely ease the restrictions and then find a second peak, and have to go right back to square one again with potentially even more draconian measures.’ The Fat Walrus, in New Cross, south London, is closed for the foreseeable future
In Ireland, health minister Simon Harris yesterday warned places where people ‘can’t safely social distance’ will likely have to stay closed until coronavirus is no longer a threat.
Mr Harris said that he did not see ‘how people can be in packed pubs again as long as this virus is still with us’. He told the Irish Independent: ‘I’d like to see a situation whereby our schools could come back or at least could come partially back.
