Struggling CBD businesses back in ‘survival mode’

Many businesses fear Victoria’s third lockdown will be the final nail in the coffin for Melbourne’s struggling CBD.

Struggling businesses must be supported by voucher programs and direct grants to cope with continuing lockdowns, the City of Melbourne says.

Lord Mayor Sally Capp said many traders were back in survival mode, and needed all the help they could get to stay afloat.

“We would like both state and federal governments to consider extra direct financial assistance to businesses that have borne the brunt of this most recent lockdown,” she said.

“Assistance needs to be targeted — such as through voucher programs or grants — to those businesses that have been hit hardest by this and previous lockdowns, such as hospitality, tourism, events and others.

“Melbourne city is the engine room of the Victorian economy and it’s critical that we work closely together with state and federal governments to support and sustain and economic recovery.”

Veteran CBD jeweller David Benjamin said that even before the latest lockdown the city was like a ghost town in the afternoon.

“The city was vacant, you could fire a cannon down Little Collins Street and not hit anybody,” he said.

Jeweller David Benjamin hope businesses would be able to survive. Picture: Jason Edwards

Mr Benjamin likened the situation to Hollywood actor Ava Gardner, who on a 1950s visit to make the nuclear holocaust movie On the Beach, reportedly described Melbourne as the “perfect place to make a film about the end of the world”.

“It’s obviously not a bottomless pit, but we would hope that the government would do whatever it can do to help businesses,” he said.

Federal Treasurer and Melbourne resident Josh Frydenberg said Victoria was in a “challenging situation”, and it needed to come out of lockdown quickly.

“My kids are not at school, my wife is working from home, and that is an experience that every Victorian family is going through right now,” he said.

Melbourne’s CBD had already been struggling before the state’s third lockdown.

Mr Frydenberg said business confidence in Victoria had again been dented by the lockdown, with one restaurant left with $50,000 worth of food and owing tens of thousands of dollars worth of wages because chefs had been preparing it.

“Small businesses like restaurants were expecting a bumper weekend with Valentine’s Day, Chinese New Year and people going to the tennis,” he said.

Cr Capp said: “It’s also important to provide businesses certainty that when this lockdown ends we are aiming to return to the health settings that were in place before it occurred instead of a prolonged staged approach.

“Many businesses will be back in survival mode to try and recoup costs.”