South East businesses hit by poor summer weather

Peter Howey (left) and Steven Courtney (right) own Red Brighton Blue guest house

Businesses in the South East of England are worried that poor weather is impacting their summer trade.

Red Brighton Blue guest house owners Peter Howey and Steven Courtney said they had to put on special offers as they couldn't rely on good weather bringing people to the coast this year.

Mr Courtney said: “It’s not a great year, things aren’t coming in as easily as they would do in previous years.

"Some of our friends who run hotels have said it’s one of the worst years they’ve had in 20 years.”

'Normally we’re crazy busy'

The guest house owner said that overall the economic climate was "difficult".

"We really feel that people are holding back spending, particularly leisure money," he said.

"We’ve always banked on our weekends, weekends have always been busy and filled up by themselves, but this year we’ve really had to work to fill up weekends.”

Damion Sulc, who is the venue manager at Yellowave Beach Sports on Brighton seafront, agreed that footfall had stalled.

"Normally we’re crazy busy from May time but obviously we have not had the good weather," he said.

Paul Stephens and his partner Nicola own The Pickled Fox in Margate

The venue manager explained that the venue had received "lots" of cancellations.

"If it’s really windy or really wet players are not obviously going to want to play in that unfortunately, which is a bit frustrating.”

Paul Stephens, who owns The Pickled Fox restaurant in Margate, said the weather's impact on footfall was tough as he did not know how much stock to buy.

“That can make the difference between you being profitable or not profitable. So we’ve found we’ve had to react to the different weather very, very quickly."