Employer refusing remaining holiday entitlement? [AdvicePlease]

I work at a local supermarket and still have 2.25 weeks worth of holiday entitlement to use before the end of the tax year (April)

I told my line manager last month about the remaining holiday and asked him to allocate the dates for me as I had no specific days I needed off work.

I went in today and spoke to him about it and he told me he may now only be able to get me off one or two of the 6/7 days remaining. I didn't know what to say with him so just said that's no good. He said he couldn't allocate it because there was not enough staff to cover the holidays in 5 weeks. I asked if I could take it gradually, a few hours every shift he told me no.

Short Summary:
-2.25 weeks of holiday remaining to take before April.
-Asked for allocation last month
-They will not allow me to take it before the end of March, and they said they will not carry it over.

I checked my employee handbook it states the following:

-It's your responsibility to make sure you take your year's full holiday entitlement. Holidays cannot be carried over into the following year.

-You should provide as much notice as possible and ideally not less than 6 weeks so as many requests as possible can be met and effective cover arranged. If you require holiday on short notice we will try and be flexible depending on business needs, but we cannot guarantee your holiday will be granted.

-If you work in a store we ask you to book your full year’s entitlement by the beginning of October of the current holiday year. If you haven't booked your full entitlement by then we'll allocate any remaining holidays for you.

Isn't this contradictory? It says its my responsibility to book holiday, but it also says they will allocate holiday not booked on my behalf....

Can anybody give me some advice on this?
Thanks.

Reply 1

threeportdrift

Careers Forum Helper

Original post by Flying Pig

................

You have nowhere to go. Tell them you intend to take all your leave, see what they say. Manage your leave better next year and don't suppose your employer will organise your life for you when you don't have a plan

Reply 2

username592312

Original post by threeportdrift

I asked them to allocate it for me. And their handbook states they automatically allocate the entitlement in October of the year

Reply 3

threeportdrift

Careers Forum Helper

Original post by Flying Pig

I asked them to allocate it for me. And their handbook states they automatically allocate the entitlement in October of the year

Yes, but so what? You either tell them you are taking leave and stop turning up for work, or you turn up for work and fight the entire organisation over being able to carry over or get payment in lieu, neither of which are at all likely to happen because taking leave is fundamentally your responsibility.