Yorkshire Dales B&B owner faces losing an entire summer of bookings

Neil McNair and his wife Jane run Low Mill in Bainbridge - a converted 18th-century watermill that is now one of the quirkiest B&Bs in the Dales.

The couple are Londoners who saw the property for sale while holidaying in the area and ended up falling in love with it. After extensive renovations, it opened to guests in 2011.

Neil has only just recovered from a challenging February which saw part of Low Mill flooded when the adjacent River Bain overflowed during Storm Ciara, although the building escaped serious damage.

Now they face months of cancelled bookings and the possible loss of almost the entire summer season.

The McNairs first started noticing bookings from overseas customers dropping off around two months ago, when awareness of coronavirus began to increase around the world.

"After the floods, we weren't getting any late or extra bookings, and they weren't coming in for Easter. We certainly noticed it two months ago. Our Americans, Australians and Canadians started cancelling - we had a group coming here at the end of their Mediterranean cruise, but when that was cancelled they had to postpone until next year," said Neil.

"We shut up shop when we were ordered to by the government. We've cancelled everything until the end of April, and cleared the calendar until June. May we will probably still be closed for. It's unpleasant and we're not yet sure whether we can claim on our insurance.

"We have savings, we've probably just got enough to get us through a few months, but it will clear us out. We're also getting a £10,000 business rates rebate and we might be eligible for some more government assistance. We have no staff, just ourselves."

Neil describes the village of Bainbridge as 'eerie' since the lockdown began.

"It's not the liveliest place at the best of times but it's deserted now, it's eerie. It's rare to see a car go past. The holiday cottages have been empty since the lockdown - they were occupied until the weekend just before the lockdown, but after the changeover day nobody else arrived. When we go out to walk the dog we do sometimes see people who probably aren't local."

Some guests have postponed their stays until the autumn, and Neil does have bookings in the diary for November and even early 2021.

"I did a Twitter appeal for people to book - I think we will be busy at the end of the year. People won't be going abroad but they'll be desperate to get out of the cities after being cooped up for so long."