Bakery owner calls for Budget help for firms

Bakery owner urges Budget support for firms

Barbakan owner Frankie Dyer says businesses will not survive without a change in the budget

The owner of a bakery in Manchester has called on Prime Minister Andy Burnham to give the hospitality sector a "fighting chance" as it struggles to cope with rising prices.

Barbakan Deli is an artisan bakery and deli in Chorlton that has been at the centre of the community for the past 62 years. But despite taking in more than £2.3m a year, it is finding it hard to pay its bills.

In an open letter to the prime minister, owner Frankie Dyer said there is "nowhere left to squeeze" and asked for independent businesses to be taken into account in the upcoming Budget.

A Treasury spokesperson said decisions on tax are "a matter for the Chancellor to set out at fiscal events".

Barbakan Deli turns over more than £2.3 million a year

In the letter, which has since been widely viewed by nearly a million people online, Dyer wrote: "Since Covid, independent businesses like ours have dragged ourselves through crisis after crisis."

"Energy prices. Fuel costs. Food shortages. Inflation. Increasing wages. Pension contributions. Corporation Tax at 25%. Business rates. And then the enormous additional cost of the increase in Employer National Insurance."

She said she had been doing "everything" Burnham had asked businesses to do, but had "no reserves left".

"It doesn't matter how much turnover you make, if the taxes outweigh what you're bringing in and retaining, you are going to end up with a negative bank balance, no matter how big or small you are," she added.

Ahead of next month's Budget, the bakery owner said she hopes to see changes to VAT, business rates and employer national insurance contributions to help support businesses and drive growth.

Without support, she said she feared the more than 6,000 business owners who had contacted her after reading the letter "won't make it until Christmas".