Operators, manufacturers and suppliers have all chimed in to concur with Clacton Pier and Adventure Island’s assessment of the current business climate: that it simply isn’t tenable for much longer.

The UK amusements industry is now near uniform in its rejection of current trading conditions cultivated by the Treasury under chancellor Rachel Reeves. 

Just last week, Coinslot reported on how Southend-on-Sea’s Adventure Island owner Philip Miller had publicly denounced Reeves in an interview with the Daily Express: detailing how the mandatory rise in minimum wage and National Insurance Contributions had “taken £600,000 straight off out of our turnover,” leaving him feeling “under siege from the government.” Miller went on to claim that the increased operating costs had led him to hold off on all capital expenditure, including reducing the total number of seasonal summer staff hires by as many as 200 people. 

At the same time, Miller’s sentiments were echoed by the Ball brothers at Clacton Pier, who released a statement that they too would both be cutting back on reinvestment efforts for the first time in 16 years, as well as delaying their full opening for the summer season to mid-June: two difficult decisions they attributed to a “lack of confidence in the new government…that leads to uncertainty all round.” 

And now, the statements of these industry heavyweights have been corroborated by independent voices reaching out to Coinslot since last week’s edition led with Clacton Pier’s cost cutting response to rising costs in the economy.

“How right they are the Ball brothers,” one coastal arcade operator wrote this week. “The beginning of June is always quiet even if the weather is good  and doing a partial shutdown is a sensible idea.”

These were views that chimed with businesses in the manufacturing and distribution sector.  “It has been a terrible start to the year with ourselves,” one machines supplier told Coinslot. “Costs just keep increasing with no end in sight. Suppressed demand and squeezed incomes have already  bitten with worse yet to come.”

A similar gloomy outlook was shared by another manufacturer, who said he may have to make “some unpalatable decisions” himself in the near future. 

 “While I do have key UK exhibitions in my cross hairs, I will likely exhibit with an even smaller stand, maybe just bringing a table and chair,” he said. “Like Miller in Southend, we have almost put a stop on capital expenditure and only doing what is necessary.”

Meanwhile, the MD of a major supplier confirmed “it’s bad out there,” 

“Stagflation has arrived,” they wrote.  “There comes a point where you just have to say stop. You cannot keep raising your prices all the time.”