Aylesbury hair and beauty business owners frustrated by exclusion from latest support funding

Business owners in Aylesbury' s personal care sector feel let down after being overlooked in recent funding initiatives.

On January 24, Bucks Council announced two grants would be made available to businesses 'adversely affected' by Omicron.

One was solely aimed at the hospitality sector and could see businesses get financial assistance of up to £6,000.

The other smaller initiative was capped at £1,500 and made available to businesses in hospitality, events, and transportation industry.

Neither served the hair and beauty industry, the council says the £6,000 was ring-fenced for the hospitality sector by the government.

It kept the additional funding available to only three industry sectors, as it didn't have the funding or resources to serve everyone, the council says.

Bucks Council Leader Martin Tett told the Bucks Herald: “We are very conscious businesses across many different sectors have been impacted by Omicron and we are doing all we can to provide across the board support.

"There are currently national rate relief schemes in place which businesses can read about on our website.

“Our ARG booster grant provides support for businesses that don’t qualify for the Hospitality and Leisure grant.

"The pot of money made available from the Government is small for this grant. Therefore, there is simply not enough funding available to support all those businesses and sectors who wish to access this scheme. Spreading the sum available across larger numbers of recipients would mean no-one would feel the benefit as the grants would be so small.”

Several salons across the country did receive ARG grants.

Yorkshire Council, Birmingham City Council and Windsor Council all offered ARG support to the beauty and health industry.

Owners of hairdressers, salons and barbers in Aylesbury Vale feel let down by the news, believing they have once again been overlooked.

Much of the frustration from industry leaders comes as they feel beauty businesses have not received comparable support to other customer-dependent organisations.

The government launched a high profile 'eat out to help out' campaign to support restaurant owners in the first year of the pandemic.

A reduced VAT rate was introduced to help out the hospitality industry, but excluded the personal care sector.

A HM Treasury spokesman told the Bucks Herald: "We understand that hairdressers have been impacted by coronavirus, which is why in December we announced £100 million in additional grants funding for councils to distribute to businesses most in need in their areas.

“This is on top of the billions of pounds of support through furlough, self-employment grants, 75% business rates relief over the year, the recovery loan scheme, Time to Pay and the reintroduced Statutory Sick Pay Rebate Scheme.”

Owners believe the Omicron variant hit the hair and beauty industry as hard as any other sector.

Some believe they would have been better off in lockdown than staying open, dealing with cancellations and a dramatically reduced customer base.

Just like bars and restaurants, many people skipped their trip to the barbers or hairdressers in the lead up to Christmas, fearing catching Covid, and being forced to spend another Christmas away from loved ones.

Louise McEnteggart owner of Rhapsody Hairdressing in Aylesbury said: "I have been trading for over 12 years and have just experienced the worst downturn in business for November, December and January, since opening in 2009 which was during a recession.

"I am saddened by the potential loss of salon businesses throughout our sector due to lack of financial support from Buckinghamshire Council.

"Especially after hearing that three salon owner friends of mine have recently closed their businesses in other areas. This has been a direct result of this new variant .

"The personal care sector has had some of the tightest restrictions, higher costs of PPE, reduced guest numbers due to social distancing as well as a lack of opportunity to fill empty appointments due to last minute Covid cancellations.

"We have been disregarded as an industry in relation to the 5% VAT decreases and continue to be ignored by Buckinghamshire Council with no inclusion of financial support for the recent grants.

"These grants are at the discretion of Buckinghamshire Council who to my knowledge have not contacted any personal care business in order to ascertain the level of support that may be desperately required by the hair and beauty industry at this time."

Other business owners in Aylesbury Vale mentioned feeling '"frightened" for the future to the Bucks Herald.

January is traditionally a slow month for the industry, but coming off a uniquely challenging Christmas, that has just added more stress to manager's dealing with rising costs and fears of potential closure.