A North East bar and hotel group has seen its turnover fall by more than 40% after lockdown forced its sites to close for several months.
Apartment Group - which owns a number of venues including the Madame Koo, House of Smith, and Newton Hall - saw its turnover drop from £3.86m in 2019 to just £2.18m for the year ending July 31, 2020.
The 43% drop in sales was caused by the Government's decision to close all non-essential businesses in order to fight the coronavirus pandemic. The lockdown measures, which began on March 20, 2020, were described in the company's accounts as having a "detrimental impact" on the group's trading.
While the company closed its venues in line with lockdown measures, the Apartment Group said its ability to plan and adapt to the crisis had been undermined by the Government's "stop-start" approach.
Debrah Dhugga, Apartment Group's chief operating officer, said: "As with so many other businesses, having virtually no sales over the last 12 months has proved extremely challenging, and resulted in a considerable decrease in turnover and profit.
"Covid 19 delivered such an unusual set of extreme circumstances, and no one had any pre-prepared strategy on how to deal with the situation.
"Adapting and planning on a daily basis was made even more difficult with the stop-start instructions coming from Government.
"Regrettably, unwanted decisions have had to be made to protect the business, affecting staff and suppliers, to ensure that we will come out of the other side and flourish once again.
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"However, during these difficult times we still managed to generate some positive news with the acquisition of two new hotels and we’d like to thank our bank NatWest for its continued belief in the business during Covid. We are both excited and confident for the year ahead."
The drop in sales also caused the group's operating profit to fall substantially during the 12 month period, from £1.1m to just £267,547.
Profit after tax came in at £72,846, down from £677,577.
Apartment Group is currently in the midst of a major rebranding of a number of Newcastle bars. The Collingwood Collection will see the group create five new areas to replace House of Smith, Florita's, and Madame Koo and the company has invested £2m into the scheme.
Last year the group's licences for its bars on Collingwood Street were suspended for three months after a police investigation into drug dealing in the area.