A Community Hub Facing Challenges
Withington Public Hall Institute, a community pub and pizza venue in south Manchester, celebrated its fourth birthday recently. However, director Neil Woodward fears the 2024 October Budget may make it difficult for the Institute to reach its fifth anniversary.
"It's very depressing," Woodward told the Express. "We're going to be really squeezed. It suggests to me that the Government really don't understand hospitality and how it works."
The historic building housing the Institute was originally gifted to the people of Withington in 1861 and later became a working men's club. After it closed six years ago, Woodward held several pop-up events there before taking on the lease to run something more permanent as a social enterprise.
The Institute is not just a hospitality venue; it also has a strong focus on grassroots music and employs eight people through a recruitment policy that involves disadvantaged youngsters from all backgrounds. Woodward hoped the Budget would recognize the benefits of social impact businesses like his and provide support to the hospitality sector as a whole.
However, the Budget's increase in the National minimum wage coupled with the rise in National Insurance costs has created a "double whammy" for the Institute. "I need to work out the actual financial impact – particularly the effect of the employer's NI," Woodward said. "And while we absolutely support the rise in the minimum wage it will really squeeze our margins."
This financial pressure will make it difficult for the Institute to continue its mission of providing opportunities to those with low-skill or limited experience. "We aspire to pay our people more – ideally the Real Living Wage - but we just haven't been able to," Woodward said. "This is going to make it even harder to invest in our people and do the good stuff that we do in terms of developing young inexperienced people."
Despite being a Not for Profit Community Interest Company, the Institute still needs to be commercially viable. Woodward revealed that the Institute would have gone broke this summer had it not been for fundraising events. The future doesn't look much brighter, he says.
"I can't see anything in the Budget which will increase consumer spending – especially as everyone is dealing with high mortgage rates and energy bills," Woodward said. "Alcohol duty is up on canned and bottled goods after we've already seen a massive increase in costs from suppliers."
"There's no benefit on VAT either- no cut in the 20 per cent rate. No kick-back or sweetener at all for our sector. Overall it feels like a squeeze. It's going to be very difficult.
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