Government pubs U-turn is good news but what about the rest of the hospitality sector? - Carl Les
I must say right from the start that other emporia selling cheese are available, even specialist retail outlets as well as general grocers, and many do a very good job. The specialist dairy sector has grown exponentially in the last half-century, including British cheeses, and especially local cheeses.
For local we can focus on purely Yorkshire, but just over the borders lie other great producers in the northern Pennine dales, in Northumberland and especially Lancashire.
Today I want to mention my two ‘go to’ cheese shops, one over 40 miles away so I don’t get there so often, and one I can visit on an almost weekly basis. I had the opportunity to visit the further one this week.
My car has just tipped over 90,000 miles and although still a favourite it will soon surpass its manufacturer’s extended warranty.
Although I can buy other insurers’ offers, I still prefer the comfort of the maker’s, so it’s time to start looking for a change. I can remember the days when you were lucky to get a quick drive down the road before deciding on life’s second largest purchase decision.
The local dealer offered a demonstrator for 24 hours, so I needed a route to drive. Deciding to visit Kexgill on the A59 to see the largest road building project we have ever undertaken, then on into the Dales to see the site of a small but important bridge we have had to rebuild at a cost of £3m, using the A65 would take me past the cheese shop near Austwick known as The Courtyard Dairy. A good blend of motorway, A road, B road and Dales roads.
Andy and Kathy Swinscoe started their business in 2012, but moved into their iconic stone barn premises in 2017. Still small-scale as fits the artisan, the site now hosts a café, museum, bakery, and a well-stocked wine shop.
Their USP is that they only stock cheeses from small, independent, cheese-making farmers and like any professional continental fromagier, they practice ‘affinage’, that is they age the cheeses they sell, skills Andy perfected working throughout the UK and Europe.
We are indeed fortunate to have such a retail outlet here in North Yorkshire, one that attracts business and visitors from all over the country and the county. Located in the countryside, not surrounded by a major urban population, on a strategic but not hugely busy road, it’s a tribute to their specialism that the business is successful.
My other go to cheese seller is in an urban location, on Commercial Street in Harrogate, our equivalent to York’s Bishy Road, home to the hairdresser I’ve frequented for 40 years, a butcher who knows every customer in his shop and every person who passes by in the street, a very smartly kitted out fishmongers recently arrived from Leeds, and a TV shop where I have watched prices of huge TVs fall from £5,000 to £850 over the years. It is my intention when I finally retire to turn my home office into a cinema room, and at this rate I may be able to afford the screen.
I don’t know when I started visiting The Cheeseboard at No 1 Commercial Street. Gemma Aykroyd started it in 1981 but for me it’s just always been there, a very small shop up two steep steps off the pavement, a window full of interest with little descriptive labels enticing you in to see refrigerated counters full of even more cheeses.
Little could be done to make the shop more accessible, or larger to more comfortably cope with more customers at once, so the dramatic decision has been taken to move. Fortunately only 300 feet or so, to No 30 Commercial Street, light bright shop window, new shop fittings, more space and joy a level entry. Improved premises, but still the same quality stock.
The reason for mentioning these two businesses is that business is in the news this week. The much-leaked U-turn about rates for pubs has finally happened. That’s good news for 10 per cent of the hospitality sector, but what about the other 90 per cent? All are suffering.
I fail to see the difference between our village pub where over half the floor space is available for food service, and the little bistro we know where you can sit and drink as well as eat. One wins, the other loses. That’s perverse in the extreme but all hospitality, and all retail are going to struggle with increasing costs which will hinder growth and reduce employment opportunities.
With some costs, adjustments can be made. Energy efficient equipment and lighting can be bought. Opening hours varied. Staff vacancies not filled. Wage increases resisted. But business rates are the Promethean rock that cannot be countered. They keep rolling in, month on month, continually the same no matter how well the business is trading.
A product of a lack of understanding of business by the Government, where elected and appointed decision-makers have little experience. Ministers and civil servants need to realise, pubs are not the only sector that need consideration.
Coun Carl Les is the leader of North Yorkshire Council.