Theatres uninsured from the impact of COVID-19 are to be given additional support to help them through the difficult period, the UK Government has announced.
Aware that while many of the larger venues were covered by the pandemic, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak, unveiled a raft of measures this week to support particularly smaller theatres that would not be.
The further assistance amounts to extending the suspension of business rates to venues of all sizes, as well as providing grants of £25,000 to help smaller venues as the effects of the coronavirus continue to force event cancellations and closures across the industry.
He said, “Following the changed medical advice, there are concerns around the impact on pubs, clubs, theatres, and other hospitality and leisure and retail venues.
“Let me confirm that for those businesses that do have a policy for insurance that covers pandemics, that the government’s action is sufficient and will allow businesses to make an insurance claim against their policy.
“But many of those businesses don’t have insurance, so we will need to do more.”
The new measures are in addition to those announced by Sunak last week in his first budget that included business rates for theatres with a rateable value of less than £51,000 were to be slashed by 100% for a year.
The Chancellor also announced an extra £330 billion worth of government backed and guaranteed loans made available to support businesses to pay rent and salaries.
For small and medium sized businesses, the business interruption loan scheme announced last week will now provide loans of up to £5 million, increasing from £1.2 million.
