Outdoor Retail Chain Hammered By Epidemic

Britain's largest outdoor retail chain, Blacks, has announced that the foot and mouth crisis has seriously damaged its first half results for 2001.

The company says that sales slumped from Easter onwards as walkers and climbers put a hold on purchases with the countryside closed down. They also say that the slump has hit rural stores hardest, with urban outlets being less seriously affected.

The report - see this story on Ananova for more details - follows in the wake of a furious open letter from the MD of the company producing the Mountain Equipment and Ron Hill brands, which put the fall in turnover in the outdoor manufacturing industry at a massive 40 per-cent.

Worryingly, foot and mouth has become something of a non-story for the national media, but the slow pace of re-opening and the lack of any meaningful compensation package so far for the outdoors leisure industry means that the picture is still grim for both manufacturers and retailers with every possibility that some smaller companies will go to the wall.