Chapel-en-le-Frith pub landlady ‘crossing her fingers and hoping for the best’ after closure

Nicola Bremner, 42, who has run the New Inn for two-and-a-half years, qualifies for a grant worth 80 per cent of her average monthly profits.

However the money – announced by chancellor Rishi Sunak and rising to a maximum of £2,500 a month - will not begin to arrive until the start of June at the earliest.

It will arrive directly into people's banks accounts from HMRC - but not until June.

Mum-of-three Nicola said: “These aren’t great times for pub owners or the self-employed.

“When they say all this help is out there it’s very frustrating when you can’t access it.

“I’m just going to cross my fingers and hope for the best.”

The Government has been offering universal credit to those struggling but as Nicola’s husband is a key worker she is unable to access the benefit.

She said: “Life will be hard for a lot of landlords - staff and utility bills will still need paying.

“But the support from the brewery has been really good - they’ve suspended all the direct debits and aren’t taking anything from us.”

Nicola says she hopes ‘to still be here’ when coronavirus has been brought under control but says not knowing how long that will take is hard.

She said: “As long as people keep going out they’re going to keep us under lockdown.

“If you go on Facebook you can see that people are still going out - and as long as they’re still doing that the longer it will take.”However landlady Nicola believes if her business can survive the virus when she reopens she will not be short of punters.

She said: “Judging from the support we had before we closed and Britain being Britain we’ll be alright.

“I would imagine - knowing people around here - they’ll support us and we should be able to get back up and running again.”