Restaurants extend Eat Out To Help Out into September

The eat out to help scheme has served up 64 million discounted meals in the first three weeks alone.

The Eat out to Help out has proved so popular – offering 50% discounts on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays – it has prompted a few establishments to keep it going in September out of their own pocket.

Here are a few that will be extending their Eat Out To Help Out deal:

  • Toby Carvery
  • Harvester
  • Tesco
  • Oakman Inns
  • The Real Greek
  • Bill’s
  • Drake & Morgan
  • Signature Pub Group

To view, the full list and more information click here.

UK housing demand soars since the end of COVID lockdown

Zoopla has reported that after the lockdown ended demand for houses has risen; with 3-4 bedrooms with space to work from home as been considerably popular.

Houses are being sold as fast as they were before the pandemic hit, reports are showing that buyers are flooding the market with the average time on the market falling from 39 to 27 days over the same period last year.

For more information click here.

Companies urged to find middle ground on return to UK offices

Many office areas are like a ghost town with the end of summer commuter crush likely to not pick up next week as more companies are pushing towards remote working.

Many businesses have found that they can still carry out their everyday tasks comfortably at home, without affecting their productivity. Companies have now questioned if they need to spend money on an office.

For more information on this click here.

Eviction ban extended by 4 weeks

The government has announced a four-week extension to the eviction ban for tenants affected by the Coronavirus pandemic. This means that landlords will be banned from evicting tenants until at least 20 September 2020.

The government has also announced plans to give tenants greater protection from eviction over the winter by requiring landlords to provide tenants with a new 6 months’ notice period (extended from 3 months’) until at least 31 March 2021.

According to independent research, 87% of tenants have continued to pay full rent since the start of the pandemic, with a further 8% agreeing to rent reductions with their landlords. However, landlords and tenants continue to face situations where tenants are unable to pay their bills resulting in lost rental income.

While this provides comfort to Tenants this piles on misery to Landlords with tenants who are refusing to pay and cannot be evicted.

Government Urged to Act Over Mass unemployment

Each day we hear of a company shedding jobs:

  • 7,000 jobs go at Marks & Spencer
  • 3,000 jobs at Virgin
  • 12,000 jobs planned loss at British Airways

With the end of the Furlough scheme looming this is not going to get any better for the foreseeable future.

The hardest-hit industries entertainment, retail, and aviation will bounce back but if the government does not act soon then they could be irrecoverably damaged.

There are arguments that in a free market economy the market should determine the job level and government intervention is not helpful – the counter-argument is that this is the case in normal times, and these are not normal times.

Read more on this story here.