City centres won’t be saved by returning to the office – there are other positive uses for empty workplaces

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While watching the incumbent government approach another U-turn on its clumsy request (directive?) to get employees back into city centres, perhaps again, it has not noticed the changes occurring in front of it.

Apart from those furloughed, most of the rest of us do not need to “return to work” since we have continued to work throughout the lockdown and are still doing so now. Sure, we miss the interaction with colleagues and “the team”, but there are emerging new ways of supporting this necessary part of organisational cultural development. Many are working well and since this is the new way or new normal, it is perhaps incumbent upon us to embrace it, or at least notice it.

City centres will be changed regardless and maybe a radical thought is that we could sort the housing shortage all in one go by converting the soon-to-be-empty offices into flats, wellbeing centres and care homes. Landlords may not get the commercial rent but they won’t starve. And this would definitely move us towards a more just society. Next, a universal wage.

Let’s not kid ourselves, the natural interruption we are experiencing will come again. Creativity, discovery and automation will enable us to survive it, but not all of us will be involved.

Mark Langley-Sowter
Address supplied

Enormous challenges ahead

The UK faces an enormous challenge in 2021. Covid-19 and the climate crisis are likely still to be with us. It seems too, in the light of recent news, that it is quite probable we will also have to cope with a no-deal Brexit. The implications for the economy and social cohesion are grave.

Understandably, given the success of the Leave campaign, even pro-EU politicians are reluctant to talk openly about seeking to rejoin. However, this really seems the only thing we can do to avoid complete disaster for our country.

The Rev Andrew McLuskey
Ashford, Middlesex

Praise for Rashford

I have nothing but admiration for Marcus Rashford and the prominence he has given to a topic that I’m sure most people would have ignored. As a recipient of school meals when I was a child and as someone who certainly didn’t, at the time, appreciate their value – both nutritionally and psychologically – what he has achieved in such a short time is just remarkable. Oh that Gavin Williamson and Matt Hancock had half the decisiveness and compassion shown by Mr Rashford. How about, as a way of the government saying thank you, we see how well Mr Cummings can play football?

Steve Mumby
London

World beating incompetence

I recently travelled through Birmingham airport and completed a Passenger Locator Form. This was a tedious process, filling in some eight pages of data – the large majority of which was already held as part of the normal travel regime and could have been collected by scanning my boarding card and passport.

You quote Dr Gwen Lowe saying that it will take up to a week to enter the data into the “track, trace and protect” system and contact the 193 passengers from the infected Zante flight.

Surely the only purpose of passenger location is to inform track and trace, and yet it seems that two new computer systems are not designed to work together. I thought that I could not be surprised any more by the UK’s response to Covid-19, but this failure in systems’ thinking really does demonstrate world beating incompetence.

Phil Gilbert
Hallaton, Leicestershire

Solutions first

London bosses have reportedly called on the government to help make commuters feel safe using public transport and returning to the office. Their concerns are understandable, but they are demanding a message rather than a solution. Were public transport actually to be safe – with everyone wearing a mask and social distancing observed at all times – and were employers able to ensure employee safe distancing, there would be no problem. Let’s first have the solutions, which must include support for London’s elected mayor. The message that London bosses seek will then follow.

Or let’s not hold our breath, but watch while our worse than mediocre government simply destroys the complex fabric that held London, and indeed, the country, together.

Beryl Wall
London

Seventies sarnies

Reading the latest from the ever reliable Jenny Eclair reminded me – along with, I dare say, most over 55s – of the dreadful choice of sandwiches available in the 1970s: cheese, ham or corned beef on white bread. If you were lucky you might get cheese and ham!

For younger readers I must point out that, with only a few exceptions, the gastronomic delights on offer then – in the home or while eating out – were limited, often bland and of rather low quality.

The biggest exception, in my opinion, was the aptly named full English breakfast, which was championed in an earlier accurate quote from the late writer, Somerset Maugham: “To eat well in England you should have breakfast three times a day.”

Looking at the vicissitudes of Brexit and the Covid-19 pandemic I am saddened to think that those yesteryear culinary wastelands could soon be returning; but this time with a vengeance!

Robert Boston
Kingshill, Kent