EXCLUSIVE: The leisure chief says the Chancellor has got it wrong as venue is hit with huge bill
Yorkshire Wildlife Park’s keepers care for rhino and leopards
The boss of one of the UK’s biggest safari parks has slammed Rachel Reeves as her Budget is set to cost his venue nearly £1million and hit jobs.
The Chancellor announced in October a hike to employers’ National Insurance Contributions and an increase in the National Living Wage.
Now, the CEO of Yorkshire Wildlife Park, John Minion, has said that she is taking the wrong approach as her policies take their toll on his and other venues.
Mr Minion said: “The changes have made a phenomenally negative impact on our business. The budget will cost us £650,000 in direct wage costs with a further £200,000 hit expected from the wider impact on trading conditions and costs.”
Entry prices for its nearly a million annual visitors, who can see around 500 animals of 100 species, have already had to be increased due to inflation. Increasing these any further is not an option, Mr Minion said.
Despite not having to make any immediate redundancies, the leisure chief told the Express that the park, the only venue in the UK to house polar bears in a 10-acre enclosure, will have to reduce employment, including seasonal contracted employees.
This is expected to be the equivalent of 35 fewer full-time employees over the next 12 months.
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Rachel Reeves has come under fire for her Budget measures (Image: Getty/The Mirror)
Reeves met with Mr Minion (left) and others in Doncaster earlier this month (Image: Yorkshire Wildlife Park)
John Minion says his park has been presented with an additional financial burden (Image: Andy Commins / Daily Mirror)
However, hours worked by current employees are being cut, and when asked if there was a possibility of having to let staff go in the future, Mr Minion said: “Inevitably, and again that’s across the sector. We are all in that situation.
“If the economy doesn’t recover, and it doesn’t move past this stagnated period, we’re all going to be at risk of making redundancies in the future. But that’s not to say we are over the next 12 months.”
“Everybody is in the same situation” across the leisure centre, Mr Minion added, because days out with the kids are “not essential” as people seek to save money.
In regards to current employees, the park is having to cut developmental training – courses that are not something employees “absolutely have to do” – for different roles, from catering and HR to animal keepers.
These include management, mental health and upskilling courses, which, the park’s chief said, was disappointing, as he remains “very passionate” about these things.
“I’m not sure the approach from the Government has really looked at how this impacts the economy moving forward,” he said. “Yes, today they’ve had a bit of a quick win in terms of we’ve seen some growth, but I suspect moving forward it’s not going to be the case.”
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The park is the only venue in the UK to house polar bears (Image: Andy Commins / Daily Mirror)
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Mr Minion added: “We have grown almost every year outside of the pandemic and it means that this year will be a struggle. These changes have not really been thought out. “
Further, the park boss revealed that his venue would have been opening a new animal attraction this year, but this has now been postponed.
He said: “Without this impact, we would have been opening a new animal attraction this year and taking on more staff-boosting growth in the region and supporting the local visitor economy.”
When asked what the new addition would have been, Mr Minion said that the details are being kept under wraps.
Yorkshire Wildlife Park stressed that the “expert care” given to its animals will not be affected, and its “stable business” means the possibility of having to let go of some of them in the future to save money is “not something that we are concerned about”.
The rate at which employers pay contributions will increase from 13.8% to 15% on a worker’s earnings above £175 on April 1. The threshold where employers start paying the tax will be reduced from £9,100 per year to £5,000.
On the same date, the National Living Wage for over 21s will rise from £11.44 to £12.21 per hour.
Is your business being affected by Rachel Reeves’ Budget? Email adam.toms@reachplc.com or call 07788 108490
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