Doncaster Racecourse owner set to announce job losses due to coronavirus

Arena Racecourse Company, Britain's biggest racecourse group, is planning significant redundancies with job cuts at all levels of the company, the Daily Mail has reported.

ARC owns 16 racecourses across Britain, including Doncaster’s Town Moor course.

A spokesman for ARC declined to comment on the scale of the job cuts and said in a statement: “Racecourses, like all other businesses across the sport and live events sector, rely hugely on public attendance, whether that be for race days or the multitude of other events, conferences and meetings that we host throughout the year.

“We have had no product to sell since March and with the significant uncertainty over when the public may be allowed back to venues, it is difficult to consider when that business may return.

“It is unfortunately inevitable that we will have to undertake a restructure of our organisation to reflect this fact over the coming weeks.”

Last week, Doncaster's forthcoming St Leger meeting was named as among a number of sports events being tipped to see the return of spectators next month.

The annual four day Leger meeting at Town Moor is due to take place from September 9-12.

A Downing Street statement said: 'The piloting of a small number of sporting events to test the safe return of spectators will resume from August 15 with a view to reopening competition venues for sports fans, with social distancing measures in place from October 1.