Eastbourne jobs and businesses ‘at risk’ post lockdown

And the scale of the business failures in the town could see as many as 2,156 workers unemployed with little chance of finding new jobs.

The research has been conducted by Professor Marc Cowling at the University of Derby and Professor Ross Brown from the University of St Andrews and looks at the impact of the Covid-19 lockdown on the 100 largest cities and towns in the UK.

The data finds that 263 businesses in Eastbourne are at immediate risk of failing as they run out of cash putting 2,156 workers into unemployment.

Professor Cowling said, “The immediate consequences of the Covid-19 crisis on the economies of our cities and towns will be extremely severe at a time when people are already struggling to make ends meet and pay their bills.”

Professor Ross Brown said, “While the predicted job losses are spread widely across the UK, it is very apparent that the cities and towns outside of the wealthy south east of England will suffer more from business failure. This fact alone means that the levelling-up agenda just got a lot harder.”

Eastbourne has already been hard hit by the coronavirus pandemic and economic downturn and a number of well known names have disappeared from the town centre and surrounding retail parks including Laura Ashley, Pro Cook, Harveys and Animal.

Edinburgh Woollen Mill and Bonmarche are also set to close soon.