Businesses call for more financial support after being hit hard by the pandemic

There are growing calls to help businesses still slipping through the cracks of government support during the pandemic. Some small companies are warning that they'll be unable to continue without further financial aid. 

Kyle Donnelly runs a barbershop and says the pandemic has hit his small business hard.

"It's been very tough. The first couple of months that we were told that it was going to be no students, we panicked a bit because even in term time, the students only come here when they need to for services so when they were told they couldn't go into the building we obviously had to shut down so we put people on furlough and we sort of did the best we could to sell products online...because it's not like we can sell haircuts online."

After lockdown, Kyle has still been struggling to get the footfall as many students have been attending online classes.

"We used to have three chairs going from nine until five every day all the way through term time and then it ended up being one chair every other hour, so it was just mindblowing...Being here was tougher than being at home because you're seeing the money walk away."

"At first the grants were helping because you could sort of pay rent and the university gave us 50 per cent off at first and then it was 10 per cent thereafter. But the grants would come through, but we've not had nothing now since before Christmas, so it was more, we had to do other things and use our own personal money to pay staff, to help ourselves."

Wiaam Muhsin owns his own falafel shop in the Students' Union at Cardiff University and says his business has suffered due to Covid.

"It was an absolutely difficult, really really difficult time...affected me really bad. I am 60 years of age...it's been one year and seven months, absolutely terrible. Mentally, phsyically, working seven day a week. I cannot afford the staff...I've even asked some jobs if I can have a part-time job so I can pay some of the rent."

"The help we've had is minimal, absolutely low. You can't even notice it. The help we've had from the government...has just been terrible."

The Welsh Government said it has "backed" Welsh businesses.  

In a statement, it said: “We have made £2.5 billion available to support businesses across Wales and also extended our 100% business rate relief package until the end of this financial year.

"This targeted approach, focused particularly on backing small businesses and Welsh communities, has helped protect in excess of 160,000 Welsh jobs which might otherwise have been lost.

“We encourage any business affected by the pandemic is to contact Business Wales, who have a wide range of support available, in the first instance.”