UKHospitality – government must ensure minimum rail service over Christmas or compensate businesses as further strike action looms: UKHospitality chief executive Kate Nicholls has said the government must ensure a minimum service on the railways over the sector’s crucial festive period – or compensate businesses and workers. It comes following warnings train strikes could last another six months as union members back further action. A re-ballot of Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union members working across 14 train operating companies showed that 89.9% supported the fresh mandate. This is the fourth time the RMT has secured a six-month mandate for national industrial action in the long-running dispute over pay and threatens further travel chaos during Christmas. Nicholls wrote on X, formerly Twitter: “While we recognise right to strike, we urge all sides to avoid damaging the hospitality sector at its busiest trading period – in the run up to Christmas last year we lost more than £1.5bn due to cancellations. Government must ensure minimum service or compensate our businesses and workers.” RMT general secretary Mick Lynch said: “This ringing endorsement of RMT’s approach to the dispute now means we have industrial leverage to secure an improved offer from the Rail Delivery Group (RDG). The government, which controls this dispute through a contractual mandate over the train operating companies, must now allow the RDG to put forward a revised offer so we can work towards reaching a settlement. However, if no new offer is forthcoming, we will once again take strike action in defence of our members livelihoods.” A spokesperson for RDG said: “We want to resolve this dispute and are acutely aware of the damaging impact it’s having on our passengers, our people and the many businesses up and down the country who rely on rail. We call on the RMT executive to bring an end to this dispute and put the deal – which offers job security guarantees and a pay rise of up to 13% to the lowest paid workers – to its members so we can end the uncertainty and move forward with delivering a better railway for our customers.” Meanwhile, the Department for Transport claimed RMT members have been denied the chance to end the standoff. A spokesman said: “The government has facilitated a fair and reasonable offer that’s on the table for all rail workers, which RMT members at Network Rail voted to overwhelmingly accept earlier this year. The RMT leadership has asked their members at train operators to risk losing more pay through potential strike action rather than giving them the chance to end this dispute.”
Premium subscribers to receive next Who’s Who of UK Food and Beverage today: Premium subscribers will receive the next edition of the Who’s Who of UK Food and Beverage today (Friday, 20 October) at midday. This month’s edition will feature 751 companies and more than 203,000 words of content. The companies, listed in alphabetical order, will have their most recent results reported as well as broader information around Ebitda, plans and trading style available. The database merges Companies House information, interviews and other public information to provide an easy to reference and exhaustive guide to the sector. Premium subscribers also receive access to five other databases: the
Multi-Site Database, which is produced in association with Virgate; the
New Openings Database; the
UK Food and Beverage Franchisor Database; the
Propel Turnover & Profits Blue Book; and the
UK Food and Beverage Franchisee Database. Premium subscribers are also to get access to the videos from this month’s Talent and Training Conference. They will be sent 13 videos on Friday, 27 October at 9am. Companies can now have an unlimited number of people receive access to Propel Premium for a year for £995 plus VAT – whether they are an operator or a supplier. The single subscription rate is £495 plus VAT for operators and £595 plus VAT for suppliers.
Email kai.kirkman@propelinfo.com to upgrade your subscription. Premium subscribers are also being given exclusive access to the recording and slides to Propel Multi-Club Conferences. They also receive their morning newsletter 11 hours early, at 7pm the evening before; regular video content and regular exclusive columns from Propel group editor Mark Wingett.
UK consumer confidence plunges amid higher mortgage and rental costs: UK consumer confidence survey has registered its biggest month-on-month drop in more than three years, as households contend with surging mortgage and rental costs, and higher petrol prices. The GfK consumer confidence index – a measure of how Britons view their personal finances and broader economic prospects – fell nine points from minus 21 to minus 30 in October, reports the FT. The reading – the largest monthly drop since March 2020, when the government introduced strict covid-19 curbs – reversed rises in August and September. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast a slight increase to minus 20. Joe Staton, client strategy director at GfK, said consumers’ “growing unease” had been caused by “fierce headwinds of meeting the accelerating costs of heating our homes, filling our petrol tanks, coping with surging mortgage and rental rates, a slowing jobs market and now the uncertainties posed by conflict in the Middle East”. Peter Arnold, UK chief economist at the consultancy Ernst & Young, said that “with the effect of a major rise in interest rates coming through, fiscal policy settings tight and the jobs market fraying, sluggishness is likely to remain the story over the rest of this year and into 2024”. Respondents to the survey, which was based on interviews conducted in the first half of October, were less positive about their personal financial situation and the general economic picture compared with last month.
Wingstop adds Clapham and Hounslow to 2024 openings pipeline: Lemon Pepper Holdings, the company behind the rollout of Wingstop in the UK, has added two London sites, in Clapham and Hounslow, to its openings pipeline for 2024. The 37-strong business, which recently opened in Birmingham’s New Street, has secured a site at the High Street Quarter development in Hounslow, joining Cineworld, Starbucks and Heavenly Desserts. At the same time, it has secured the ex-Bodean’s site in Clapham High Street. Both will open next year. Earlier this month, Propel revealed Wingstop, which hopes to have 40 UK sites open by the end of the year, had secured a site in the new leisure extension at Dudley’s Merry Hill shopping scheme. At the same time, the brand has secured a site in part of the former Chiquito unit in Croydon Valley Leisure Park. It has split the ex-Chiquito site with better burger brand Five Guys. Wingstop has openings already confirmed for Glasgow’s St Enoch scheme and Edinburgh’s Fountain Park shopping centre. In August, Lemon Pepper Holdings told Propel it has an “exciting roadmap of openings ahead”. The company said it was seeing strong performance across its estate, including record £100,000-plus weekly sales at its flagship site in London’s Cambridge Circus. Paul Tallentyre, of DCL, acted on the Clapham High Street deal.
