Wells and Co. offer rent concession for tenants

Wells and Co. offer rent concession for tenants

Wells & Co. have announced they will be providing a 10% rent concession to all of its leased and tenanted pubs across its 130 strong estate, this decision came from a
difficult December following additional COVID-19 restrictions being put in place across
the country. Although these restrictions didn’t include hospitality, the general
feeling amongst the population was to more vigilant, with the Government suggesting
the public should spend less time in social settings and reduce the number of people
they are seeing. Throw on top of that cancellations of Christmas parties for two years
now and businesses started to feel the stretch.

Shirley Couchman, Retail Board Director, Wells & Co. said, “We were essentially sent
into a lockdown by proxy. The Omicron variant meant guests wished to stay at home more
during, what is normally, a very busy trading period. Our pubs, as well as others,
make the majority of their money during the festive season which helps to see them
through the colder, darker and less busy times of trading during the first few months
of 2022. Whilst the £6,000 grant is of course welcomed, it doesn’t reflect the true
statistic of what our businesses lost during the month of December.”

Wells & Co. also provided bumper support to London pubs who struggled very early on in
December with footfall and number diminishing by the day. These pubs received extra
support due to the London crisis where numbers drastically fell after Government
briefings bringing in Plan B. Shirley also reflected on the decision to reduce rent,
saying “Plan B and the lockdown by proxy was the reason we gave our pub partners a
10% rent concession for the start of the New Year. We hope this concession will help
our partners and we have had very appreciative feedback from our partners so far.”

This 2022 concession was on top of the support Wells & Co. provided throughout 2021.
For the last financial year, Wells supported partners by discounting 8 months of rent
(Oct-May) by 66% meaning partners paid just 34%.