Each week, Ben Hopkinson looks back at a serious, crazy, and happy news story from the past week.
Serious News
It is set to be the quietest January in the hospitality as many places have had to reduce their staff’s hours and even opening times.
Willow Gwyn-Williams who manages a pub in Chelmsford says that this is the quietest January she’s worked – and she has been in the industry for eight years. She believes that the cost-of-living crisis is to blame for a reduction of bookings.
Over on TikTok, the trend January in Hospitality has been going viral for all the wrong reasons – however some have tried to find a positive outlook, like on how staff keep themselves busy by making art in their lattes.
It is normal for January to be a quieter month than others, but some fear that this will set the precedent for the remainder of the year.
It is daunting owners that this alongside the rise in staff wages and price rises will face price increases to the paying customer by 6-8% - some have even came up with a new strategy, “Survive ‘25”.
Crazy News
A village in Wrexham has created a road full of potholes into a tourist attraction.
Signs advertising ‘Pothole Land’ have been put up in Pontfadog, advertising the “deepest, longest, widest potholes in Wales”, adding “two kilometres of award-winning potholes with very little actual road to spoil your fun”.
Resident, Tim Raddock, says: “They're ever-growing potholes because they don't get any attention, they just keep growing. Any bad weather and you've probably got another couple of centimetres on the depth of them. From looking at them myself, they appear to be only half-filled in cases, or short of the existing road surface”.
The council has now started work to fill in the potholes, with many yet to be completed, but it only began once a sign was erected.
Happy News
Kent Fire and Rescue Service are trialling a robot to help tackle blazes.
In a bid to protect firefighters and free up resources, the robot can be operated from safety 600m away with it also able to spray 2,000 litres of water per minute.
Mark Gosling of KFRS says: “We want to protect our people – they do a risky job. We also see the robot itself being able to reduce the amount of time we spend at incidents and also reduce the number of resources which we have at incidents”.
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