WATCH: Liverpool BID Company’s Bill Addy says we need to support local business more than ever

Tomorrow Liverpool City  pubs, bars, gyms and leisure centres, casinos and bookies will have to close as the city faces the toughest lockdown measures in the country entering the government’s tier three lockdown stage.

Of course there has been lots of reaction across the city region about the new restrictions and the impact they will have on local business.

Bill Addy is Chief Executive of Liverpool BID Company and he says he worries about the impact on business owners “aspirations and hopes” and he urges us to support local businesses whilst also staying as safe as we can in the city. Watch the full interview above and read his latest statement here.

“This is tough but if there’s one thing we’ve learnt…

If there’s one overwhelming emotion I think all of us are feeling it is exhaustion. Since March, through lockdowns, restrictions, concerns about the future, lifting restrictions, re-introducing restrictions and the level of curbs we find the Liverpool City Region in today, we have been at different times confused, fearful, defiant, confident, enthused, disillusioned and disheartened. It is worth remembering, all of these emotions have been felt while living through a global pandemic.

I am, and have continued to be, inspired by each and every business working in Liverpool. We are very lucky to work alongside and within a city that has such a clear idea of who it is and where it wants to be.

Liverpool is a beautifully complicated city. It is passionate, vibrant, confident, colourful, cheeky, kind, funny and ambitious. For those of us who remember how the city was 40 years ago, the city in 2020 is what we dreamed it would become. When there were crumbling buildings, when there was division and real disenfranchisement, where we were disconnected, abandoned and gradually wasting away, Liverpool rolled up it sleeves and said, “Enough”. Liverpool’s resurgence might be measured by its glittering buildings and how many visitors love it, but we cannot forget the importance of its people in the city’s rebirth. It is the people who make Liverpool.

Much is said of Liverpool in the 80s and there are lessons to be learnt from it. For those of us in the city then, one of our most fervent ambitions was to make sure our children never had to do the same thing in the future. The most important memory of it to pass on now is that the city worked together. It had a shared goal and shared ambition, to rebuild.

There are those outside the city who say it is too nostalgic, that Liverpool spends too much time looking backwards. Liverpool looks to the past to help it learn how to shape its future. And the city has a long past and many lessons to share. This city has faced crises in its history and at each turn its extraordinary people have made a commitment, not just to bring Liverpool back but make it greater than before.

I have complete faith the city will do the same again.

At Liverpool BID Company, we will continue to keep everyone updated in terms of support, guidance, financial support and advice. We will be announcing plans for our public realms and looking further to Christmas when we have the details of the newest package of support our businesses will be eligible for.

We will continue, as we have done this week and every week of this crisis, to lobby on your behalf to government, locally, regionally and nationally. We are your voice at the table.

For now, we are all in this together, we all need to continue to work together.”