amongst several gloomy headlines, this from today’s Financial Times stands out for me: “British high street pleads for state help with rent“
This call is made today in a letter to Rishi Sunak from the chiefs of the British Retail Consortium and the British Property Federation i.e. the two leading industry bodies representing retail tenants and high street landlords. They want a scheme to support a share of their rental costs similar to the furlough scheme that is supporting a share of their wages costs.
I concur. Just two further thoughts.
- the financial request is far less than that involved the furlough scheme. The UK input output tables reveal that total rent payments by the UK retail sector are around £400mn per month, much smaller than the £13bn per month that the Resolution Foundation estimates as the cost of the furlough scheme.
- As with the furlough scheme, the challenge is the end-game. How is this managed through the rest of 2020 and into 2021 when, even as lock down is eased, there are continued problems with both supply chain interruptions and weak demand? As discussed at length elsewhere on this blog, I think the key is tailoring the amount of support to measured revenue loss & also being generous to smaller retail firms with 250 or less employees, offering 100% rent payment; but a lower percentage share of support for larger firms who can more easily obtain external finance to manage through the crisis.