Dorset hotel so 'desperately short' of staff is has had to close for two days a week

A hotel in Dorset is struggling so much with staff shortages that the manager has been forced to close two days a week to give his workers a break.

Jon Fletcher runs the Grange at Oborne in Sherborne and said reducing its opening hours was the only way of making sure the business could survive on a depleted workforce.

"We've been advertising on and off since March for certain positions, and they still remain empty," he told ITV West Country.

The hotel will also be closed for just over a week in November so that all of the staff are guaranteed a "decent" break before Christmas, Jon said.

"If we'd have continued, we wouldn't have survived anyway. It wouldn't have been viable," he added.

"We don't see any end to this at the moment. There doesn't seem to be a solution to bring more labour into the country. Some people have said it is just pushing up wages."

The hotel manager, who has been working at the venue in Dorset since 2003, blames the coronavirus pandemic and Brexit for the labour shortage.

"The pandemic has had some impact on it, but I don't think it's just that," he told ITV.

"We're still desperately short, as is almost every other industry at the moment.

"Since 2016 we've seen an almost complete halt in applications from non-British workers, so Brexit has almost definitely had an impact.

"I'd like to see some kind of plan to resolve it for the future. I just don't see where the next workforce is coming through. If they're not coming from Europe, which is where for the last 20 years we have had a lot of staff, where are they coming from in the UK?"

To try and grow the workforce, the Grange at Oborne has been offering apprenticeships for young people, but with little success.

"Because we don't see an end to it, we've already started planning for 2022. We're closing the hotel for a couple of periods next year to enable everybody to take holiday.

"And we're already restricting the work that we take next year. We're having to pick and choose what we can and can't do. We don't see an end to it."

The hotel has not just been hit by its own shortage of workers.

Jon has lost three suppliers as a consequence. One drink and two food companies have told the hotel they can no longer supply them because they do not have enough delivery drivers and warehouse workers.

"I'd love to be in the position where I say okay, that's the light at the end of the tunnel. But I haven't heard anything that makes me think that light is there."