By Kristy Dorsey

A salon owner who spent £500,000 on new premises where he has been unable to trade for more than four months has questioned the “massive oversights” in coronavirus relief assistance that have left many in the hair and beauty industry fending for themselves.

Stuart Whitelaw, owner of Mesart Hair Design in Glasgow and Uddingston, was due to open his new city centre salon in Great Western Road in March, having previously traded for six years from premises in Finnieston. Lockdown restrictions from the initial outbreak of Covid-19 delayed the opening until early July, since when the business has had to contend with lower customer volumes to meet social distancing regulations, along with subsequent closures amid changing coronavirus restrictions.

Because the business is new to the 6,000sq ft site in Great Western Road, Mesart did not qualify for any of the rates relief on offer to firms impacted by measures to control the pandemic. As a result, Mr Whitelaw says he has a rates bill of approximately £25,000 for this year that would normally have been paid in monthly instalments, but is instead mounting up and accruing charges.

“We have been closed now for about four and a half months of the year, so it has been a very difficult time for the business,” he said.

READ MORE: Mesart reveals waiting list of more than 3,000 as it prepares to open with lockdown easing

“What has been most disappointing to us is that there are other businesses who have been able to trade throughout and they have been given rates relief. It doesn’t seem like anyone is assessing who needs that rates relief, and who doesn’t.”

Mr Whitelaw also highlighted other discrepancies such as the reduction in VAT payments granted to venues in the hospitality sector, which are paying just 5 per cent until March 31. These establishments also benefitted earlier this year from the UK Government’s “Eat Out to Help Out” programme.

Extending the reduction of VAT to the hairdressing and beauty sector would assist Mesart, which employs 20 staff and has made no redundancies this year.

Mr Whitelaw also called into question the decision by the Scottish Government to give a £500 “thank you” payment to all NHS staff and social care workers.

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“That was another thing I felt the Government had overlooked,” he said. “I wouldn’t disagree at all with frontline workers who have been overwhelmed getting a reward, but what is almost insulting to me is that it was applied in a blanket fashion.

“We have a large number of clients who are GPs, doctors or technicians and so forth who say they have actually been very quiet this year, because they have not been working on Covid wards.”

Mr Whitelaw added: “For me it is all just a massive oversight by the Government. It seems to be they are just ticking the boxes to be seen to be doing the right thing, but without thinking it through.”

He said he has raised these issues with local MSP Sandra White and MP Patrick Grady, but to little effect. The advice that comes back is to access Government-backed emergency business lending, which Mr Whitelaw did at the end of August in the form of a £50,000 Bounce Back loan.

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Following the most recent three-week shutdown while Glasgow and large parts of central Scotland were under the strictest Tier 4 restrictions, Mr Whitelaw also looked at applying for some of the £30 million in “discretionary funds” made available to local councils by the Scottish Government to assist those firms falling through the gaps in support. However, he said the amount on offer was too small to make a meaningful difference.

As was the case after the first national lockdown in the spring, when Mesart had a waiting list of 3,000 clients looking for appointments, the salons have been filled to their reduced capacity since Tier 4 restrictions were lifted last week. But in the case of Great Western Road, that is half the volume of clients that would be possible without social distancing restrictions.

Asked how long it will take the business to recover from the impact of the crisis, Mr Whitelaw said: “It will take us at least two years to come back from this and get back to where we were pre-pandemic, but that is if we are talking about no more lockdowns.

"If there are more lockdowns, then small businesses are going to be needing more support. There just seems to be this disconnect that has come from the lack of understanding of small businesses.”