Hospitality boss offers to return Chancellor's £250K grant if his venues are used as vaccine centres to speed up roll-out

TRING / AGILITYPR.NEWS / January 07, 2021 /  

“Boris, let pubs and restaurants serve the vaccine.”

Hospitality boss offers to return Chancellor’s latest £250K grant if his venues are used as vaccination centres to speed up the roll-out

The Chief Executive of pub and restaurant group, Oakman Inns, Dermot King, is offering to forego The Chancellor’s latest lockdown grant of up to £250,000 if he allows National Health Trusts to use Oakman Inns’ venues as vaccination centres.

Under the business grants scheme outlined by Rishi Sunak yesterday, Oakman Inns would have received more than £250,000 during the next four months, but King is ready to give that back to the Government to help pay for a bigger and quicker vaccination roll-out.

King explained: “The only route to any normality is through mass vaccination and for that the NHS needs to be able to work at scale. The entire hospitality industry is desperate to re-open as quickly as possible before we have huge scale redundancies across the sector,” he said.

There are reports today that there are plans to use pharmacists to deliver vaccinations, and King says allowing them to work in large pubs and restaurants would mean they could be more effective.

Oakman Inns has 28 properties across many of the Home Counties and the Midlands, and like many pubs and restaurants, they have large refrigeration areas to help with storage and are COVID-19 safe.

King explained: “Our pubs have large indoor spaces and in some cases large car parks and accommodation, which could accommodate large numbers of people around the clock. Clearly, the money offered by the Chancellor yesterday would help us in the short-term, but realistically the only way all of us can get back to normal is to get the country vaccinated. We would rather let the Government keep their hand-out to invest it in using hospitality venues as vaccination centres for the greater good of all.

“The hospitality sector has the venues, it has the infrastructure, the venues are sitting empty, and our offer even includes a contribution towards the cost of the scheme. We want to help the Government and the people of the UK beat COVID-19 because the quicker we’re vaccinated, the more lives we save, the more jobs we save, the more businesses we save, and we’re prepared to do whatever it takes to see that happen.”

Image of Dermot King, CEO Oakman Inns, attached.

About the Oakman Group:

• Oakman Inns was founded by entrepreneur and its Executive Chairman, Peter Borg-Neal, in 2007 when he opened The Akeman in Tring which quickly won an award for outstanding design and conservation work with which the pub group has become synonymous.
• The multiple award-winning pub group established the new concept of the ‘modern public house’ and has successfully transformed both historic and modern buildings into contemporary spaces that have a strong sense of identity and integration within the local communities they serve. 
• Offering a high standard of food, drink and service, the Group employs around 1,000 people and owns and operates 28 distinctive all-day family-friendly establishments (eight of which offer luxury ensuite accommodation) across Berkshire, Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Middlesex, Northamptonshire, Oxfordshire, South-West London, Surrey, Warwickshire and the West Midlands.
• Dermot King succeeded Peter Borg-Neal as CEO in August last year.
• W: oakmaninns.co.uk   Tw: @OakmanInns   FB: @OakmanInns   Insta: /oakmaninns