I am hoping our lovely community can come together to support my brother Wayne, owner of Sassis in the Grove coffee shop in Carshalton through the Covid-19 crisis.

Wayne first established Sassis in North Street, Carshalton in 2005 and opened Sassis in the Grove in 2015. Since 2005 Wayne has served the community by offering work experience placements to young people with Special Education Needs from schools and colleges across the borough and beyond, he has also supported long term work experience placements to young adults with additional needs. Wayne has received awards and commendations for this and was a torch bearer at the Paralympics in recognition of his work.

Since the outbreak of Covid-19 started, businesses and the self-employed have been left very confused as to what they can and can't do and what financial support is available to them. After initially operating as a take away establishment following the Government's guidance announced on 20th March, Wayne was then forced to shut Sassis completely on 24th March after receiving a letter from LB of Sutton instructing him to close with immediate effect. This has led to the loss of thousands of pounds worth of stock which his insurance will not cover leaving him extremely out of pocket.

Wayne has a young family to support with children aged 10, 5 and 2 year old twins. His partner Christina also works in Sassis part time, so their entire family income has now stopped. They rent a home in Wallington and as well as the usual outgoings Wayne also has a loan which paid for a full refit and equipment for the café in the park, Wayne is also liable for all ongoing maintenance and repairs associated with the café.

Following the announcement of the support packages that would be available to businesses we felt somewhat relieved that Wayne would be eligible for a £10,000 Small Business Grant, however today (06/04) he has received a letter from LB of Sutton to say that he is not eligible for this as the café in on their own land. I don't understand what difference this makes, he is still a small business! Other small businesses on the High Street and in the borough could be eligible even though they do not pay business rates and some are still trading at some level-how is this fair? The rent on the café has now been frozen, but Wayne will need to keep paying other associated costs relating to the café.

Wayne has made an application for Universal Credit to see if he is eligible for support with his house rent and feeding his family etc. but he has been advised he will not receive any payments for several weeks.

We are hoping he may be eligible for the Self-employment Income Support Scheme but applications for this have not been set up yet and we've been told to not expect any payments until June at the earliest. If Wayne is eligible for this it will only give him 80% of his earnings for the past three years to when he closed on 24th March. Unfortunately last year was significantly affected by the wet weather and takings were much lower than usual. Wayne was relying on the coming summer months to make up for the shortfall but will now not benefit from this, how ironic that the weather has now improved too.

Even if he does qualify for the above support he will still be left significantly out of pocket. I am so worried about how my brother and his family will manage in the next few weeks & months and hope that our community, friends and loyal customers can somehow help to ease the financial burden currently placed on Wayne.

Right now we do not know what the future holds for Wayne and Sassis, but if you could donate anything, the cost of a lunch, ice cream or coffee it would really help, anything is better than nothing right now.

Thank you so much and stay safe xxx