More than a quarter of a million businesses will be unable to survive if trading conditions continue for another month, a new survey has found.

The Opinium-Cebr Business Distress Tracker which surveys 500 businesses across the country also found that a second wave of the pandemic would be catastrophic and could cause more than 1.1 million firms to collapse if lockdown continues for more than three months.

Business said they would need on average six months to return production to levels seen before the coronavirus pandemic.

One in six businesses said they would need at least 12 months to recover.

Pablo Shah, a senior economist at Cebr, said: “The scale and severity of the continued disruption to activity means that the UK is suffering a period of deep economic contraction.”…