Due to the current drought, and the enforcement of hose-pipe bans which came into effect today, The British Association of Landscape Industries (BALI) is still working very hard to persuade water companies to grant the concessionary 28 day exemption for establishing new planting and newly laid turf.
Drought orders and temporary restrictions also greatly affect suppliers to our industry who may also be losing orders or incurring additional cost due to loss of business. An agreement was reached to have a meeting between all the water companies and those associations involved in landscaping next Tuesday (10th April). Both Paul Cowell (BALI National Chairman) and Wayne Grills (BALI Chief Operations Officer) along with representatives of the HTA, APL and the Turf Grass Growers Association will be involved in this meeting and any developments will be communicated to our membership and published on our website ASAP.
Grills told The Landscaper ‘BALI members are reporting issues daily in respect of cancelled or postponed contracts and projects’. Individual member companies are reporting potential losses of several hundred thousand pounds worth of stock due to cancelled or postponed contracts/orders. The water companies do not appear to have acknowledged the severity of the problems that temporary use bans will bring for the landscape industry in the coming months’.
‘If this is to continue without some concession and or management from the water companies, we will undoubtedly see businesses beginning to fail and the threat of job losses in the industry looming’.
“We are already hearing reports of contracts that have been cancelled or delayed as a result of the bans and we fear that we will see business failures and job losses without further help from the water companies in managing this situation. This is also hitting the suppliers within the industry where even if there are no threats of job losses, the cost per unit of products will increase. One BALI member has already reported a potential 60% increase in unit cost in the drought affected areas.”
Next week’s meeting will be an important opportunity to underline the threat to landscaping and turfgrass professionals and their suppliers who are seeking similar treatment to operators of car washes and other commercial enterprises that rely on water to maintain their service to customers as business users.
www.bali.org.uk