What is the value of shooting, and what will the impact of COVID-19 be?

It is a well rehearsed truism that many people and businesses in remote and rural areas rely upon shooting for their income and livelihoods, but what is the true value of shooting to the UK economy? Our position in the shooting world, plus the data that we collect each year through the Game Shooting Census, allows us to draw out some fascinating stats that add to the research already carried out by various other organisations, including the report conducted in 2012/13 by PACEC entitled "The Value of Shooting - The economic, environmental, and social benefits of shooting sports in the UK."

One question that is commonly asked, and that isn't easily answered is the following:

How many game shoots are there in the UK?

While this calculation relies upon average numbers, and so is subject to a certain degree of inexacitude, we can calculate the total number of shoots in the UK using the following equation. The PACEC study gives a figure of 20,000,000 birds shot, while the 2019 census tells us that shoots account for 1,554 of these birds each. Thus we arrive at a figure of 12,870 shoots in the UK.

How many shoot days are there each season?

Using similar methodogy we can calculate the number of shoot days that occur each year, simply by multiplying the total number of shoots by the average number of days per shoot (12.7). This gives us a total of 163,449 shoot days per year.

More: How much shooting will there be this season?

What is the value of these shoot days?

This is where things start to get both interesting, and a little complex. We must first take into account that not all shoots sell days. In fact, only around 35% of shoots sell days, according to the Census. We must also account for the fact that some shoots charge VAT, and others do not.

Using the 35% figure above, we arrive at a figure of 4,456 shoots selling days. Based on the Census, each of these shoots sells an average of  12.13 days a season. 

Of these shoots, only 29.7% are above the VAT threshold, and therefore charge VAT. By definition these tend to be the larger shoots. Again based on the Census, these shoots shoot an average of 4,580 birds per season. There are 1,323 such shoots.

So, the total spend on shoots that charge VAT is calculated by multiplying the average number of birds shot, by the average price of a bird, and then that number by the number of shoots. Rounding down to the nearest million for the sake of round numbers, we arrive at £212,000,000 spent at shoots charging VAT.

A simple calculation then gives us the value of the VAT on this: £42,000,000, again rounded to the nearest million.

A similar calculation gives us the figure for shoots not charging VAT. The average number of birds shot on these shoots is smaller: 2,614, but there are more of them (3,132). Thus we get a figure of £286,000,000 spent at shoots not charging VAT.

Adding these results together gives us a figure for the total amount spent by Guns on shooting alone, a chuncky £540,000,000 spent on shooting.

The other factors to consider

When calculating the value of shooting to the economy, there are a number of other factors we must take into account.

• The spend on birds released - £413,000,000 
• The spend on full and part time employment - £255,000,000
• The spend on accomodation - £81,000,000

Many country pubs and hotels rely on income from shooting parties to see them through the winter

What is the total value of shooting to the UK economy?

Here the maths becomes a bit more straightforward - simply add it all together.

This gives the staggering total of £1,280,000,000, or put another way, £1.28 billion pounds.

However, because we have always rounded down, this is a lower number than the true figure, by at least £1 million. These numbers also don't include grouse shooting, since the spend can be so variable year by year. It is also worth noting that this doesn't include a variety of other obvious figures that *could* be included, such as cartridges, food and drink, travel, clothing and equipment. To give an example, assuming that every shoot day sees one bottle of sloe gin consumed at around £20 a bottle, the spend on sloe gin alone would come to around £3 million. 

What will be the impact of Covid-19 on shooting's contributon to the economy?

Our recent survey of shoots indicated that although around two thirds of shoots plan to shoot this season, a significant proporton of these will be reducing the number of days they shoot. You can see the research in this article. A significant proportion have also yet to decide upon what they plan to do.

Related: Life after lockdown - will shooting be among the first activities?

It is therefore reasonable to say that there is a potential for there to be 50% fewer shoot days in the 2020/21 season, either owing to a drop in demand from guns fearful that social distancing will mean their days can't go ahead, or similar fears from shoots not willing to take the risk of buying in birds that they then can't shoot.

In this instance we can immediately halve the spend on both birds released, and the spend on shoot days by guns, as well as the spend by guns on accomodation. We can also halve the amount spent on part-time employment, representing as it does the beaters, pickers up and other shoot day support. It is reasonable to assume that the spend on full-time employment would drop, but it is hard to get an accurate figure for how much this might reduce as estate staff are redeployed to other activities and so on. Consequently, for the purposes of this calculation we will assume that this figure remains the same.

Fewer shoot days means less work for beaters and pickers-up

As a result, this 50% reduction in shoot days could result in a loss of liquidity of up to £565,000,000 this coming season. Again, it is worth highlighting that this is most likely an underestimate, both because the initial figure is an underestimate, and because it doesn't inlcude a figure for full time job losses, and because we're using averages which fail to account for the fact that the largest shoots are likely to be the hardest hit: most likely to be mothballing entirely or significantly reducing their activity.

Shooting's contribution is vital

We all love shooting, and are keen to see it go ahead this year. It has been suggested that campaigning to see shooting go ahead this season is irresponsible, selfishness even, on the part of Guns. However, when the figures are laid out in stark detail in this way the importance of shooting, and the devastating impact that Covid-19 could have on rural areas - places where alternative employment opportunities are few and far between.