Businesses hit by weather (From Watford Observer)

Businesses hit by weather

7:20am Sunday 7th September 2008

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For most of us this year’s soggy summer will have proved little more than an excuse to bemoan the lack of sun-induced endorphins and pine for a week away in warmer climes.

For businesses across south west Hertfordshire, however, it has had a string of altogether more serious consequences.

According to the Met Office, 90.7mm of rain fell in Hertfordshire in August. That is 74 per cent above the average for the same month over the past 100 years.

For many businesses the persistent rain, together with the spiralling economic downturn, has caused crippling financial problems.

“It has been a miserable summer”, Nick Williams, a director at Café Cha Cha Cha, in Cassiobury Park, said.

Nick says the lack of seasonal sunshine – the second damp squib of a summer in a succession – has seen fewer families heading to the park and left his business feeling the pinch.

“We are a business based in the park so we probably rely more than most on the good weather.

“It has not been great.

“When it is raining business is practically zero, we just don’t do business at all.

“We are used to it though. I thought last year was a blip on the radar but I think this year has been just as bad, if not worse.”

Nick says the unseasonable weather, coupled with inconsistent forecasting, has made it doubly difficult to plan ahead.

He continued: “We have had to watch the pennies and you have to be careful with what you are ordering and what you are spending – especially because you don’t always know what the weather is going to be like.”

Further along the park, Vicenzo, who operates an ice cream van close to the paddling pool, believes he has been hit harder than most.

Vicenzo, who opens his van seven days a week, said: “It has been really, really bad.

“Nobody is here. People have no money - that is it.

“You can get 3,000 people here, but they are not coming.”

Local farmers are also having to work double time to harvest their crops, such has been the impact of the recent rain.

Julian Cartman, a local representative of the National Farmers Union, said: “They are used to dealing with the vagaries of the British weather and what it throws at them.

“It has been a struggle but I think most of the harvest is in now.”

Roger Gagan, from the Watford Chamber of Commerce, added that businesses across the town had suffered a summer washout.

“The big losers are obviously retail places. People are just not spending money on summer clothing.

“People keep waiting for the summer to come and the longer it goes the worse the weather gets.”

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