Wells & Co. latest to offer rent reduction

Wells & Co. is the latest pub company to reveal that is has been offering its tenants a 10% rent concession throughout January. 

Following in the footsteps of Robinsons and Shepherd Neame, all of Wells & Co.'s leased and tenanted pubs across its 130-strong estate will benefit from the move, after a difficult December of additional Covid-19 restrictions being put in place across the country.

“We were essentially sent into a lockdown by proxy," says Shirley Couchman, retail board director of Wells & Co (pictured). "The Omicron variant meant guests wished to stay at home more during, what is normally a very busy trading period. Our pubs, as well as others, make the majority of their money during the festive season which helps to see them through the colder, darker and less busy times of trading during the first few months of 2022. While the £6,000 grant was of course welcomed, it doesn’t reflect the true statistic of what our businesses lost during the month of December.”

Wells & Co. also provided support to London pubs that struggled early on in December. These pubs received extra support due to the London crisis where numbers drastically fell after the government triggered Plan B. 

For the last financial year, Wells & Co. discounted rent across eight months by 66%.

You may also be interested in…