Desperate business owners flood town hall helpline with 16,000 calls

By Lachlan Leeming, Local Democracy Reporter

More than 16,000 people have called a town hall helpline in a matter of days after business owners say they have lost up to 90 per cent of their trade due to lockdown.

More than 60 business chiefs tuned into an online meeting of the South East London Chamber of Commerce on Thursday, where members heard Greenwich council had received more than 16,000 calls for support since March 31.

Hoards of small business owners spoke of the damage lockdown has caused – and their fears for whether they could recover after it ends.

Marco Olmi, managing director of the Woolwich-based Drury Tea and Coffee, revealed he had lost “90 per cent of business overnight”.

The tea and coffee supplier said the lockdown had seen demand screech to a halt as the hospitality market crashed overnight, while distributor sales in the UK had disappeared.

The business had to furlough roughly 30 staff, with a “core” group of about 13 left.

“Most of our suppliers have been understanding – we’ll pay them, just later,” Mr Olmi told the chamber, which works with businesses across Greenwich, Bexley, Bromley and Lewisham.

“We just don’t have the cash. The cash evaporated overnight.”

Mr Olmi added the eventual repeal of the lockdown measures might not be an instant fix for companies in the hospitality sector.

“What worries me the most is the exit. It’s going to be tricky – I worry hospitality may lag in the recovery because of the social distancing rules,” he said.

He added businesses would be faced with an issue if the Government-backed furlough scheme ended before turnover recovers.

Greenwich council leader Danny Thorpe told the meeting the authority had been able to deal out more than 50 per cent of the small business relief grants given to it by the Government.

He said the move would see £36m of support directed to 3,000 businesses in the borough so far.

He acknowledged the current support packages presented “real issues” for the self-employed.

Just under one in five workers in the Greenwich labour market was self-employed, the Labour leader said, adding the borough was “trying to work through what that means” for those impacted.

Cllr Thorpe said the authority was “in this for the long haul” and that “attention now has shifted to how we recover from this”.

“Things are stable now, attention now has shifted to how we recover from this,” he said.

“As soon as we are able, we will give out the message that Greenwich is open for business again.”

It has delivered up to 300 boxes of food directly to doors in one week alone and helped distribute 2,000 frozen ready meals a week to front line organisations, and redistributed four tonnes of surplus food to groups.