Jonathan Phillips, Hospitality and Leisure partner at Property Consultants Bidwells

“Permission for tables and chairs to be placed on the highway outside of food and drink venues will be extended until September 2022; alongside this, the process has also been simplified, making it slightly more accessible for the hospitality sector to return to normal.

“Venues won’t need permission to erect marquees on their grounds for up to two months; this will help out hospitality catering for customers for the colder months at the end of the year.

“At the beginning of the first lockdown, venues were encouraged to serve takeaway food; this initiative is set to continue until March 2022 with hopes to become permanent.

“These are common-sense measures to assist the return of the much-missed hospitality industry. Hopefully, struggling venues will be able to rekindle vital trade for themselves and their local communities. With some exceptions, many local authorities have been wholly sympathetic to all those but the worst cases of planning breaches over the past twelve months”