The Reporting Back from Westminster column with Andrew Jones MP: Embrace the positive changes caused by Covid-19

Even great adversity presents us with opportunities. Often we don’t have much of a choice about the adversity we face but we do have a choice whether to take the opportunities that are presented to us.
Covid-19 has brought a variety of changes, including lower pollution levels as cars stayed off the roads.Covid-19 has brought a variety of changes, including lower pollution levels as cars stayed off the roads.
Covid-19 has brought a variety of changes, including lower pollution levels as cars stayed off the roads.

It is the same with coronavirus.

Our public health sector and key workers have helped us stamp right down on the virus and that has clearly been the government’s first concern.

In doing so our world changed.

There were some very uncomfortable changes. We couldn’t see our loved ones, we have seen huge pressures on business and jobs, we couldn’t shop and socialise in the way we wanted to and much more.

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And there are changes that have caused many of us to think about our lives.

We have seen an extended period with less traffic, lower pollution levels, more use of public spaces for exercise and socially-distanced meetings. Many who thought they had to travel to work – often long distances – have found they don’t.

Cleaner air, less time sat in traffic jams, more time with loved ones, exercising outdoors – all improvements to our quality of life. But there are wider benefits – fewer greenhouse gases released in exhaust fumes, fewer precious natural resources used and working from home often increases productivity for people who are desk-based.

As lockdown gradually eases we can think about how we want our society to change. Huge events change individual outlooks, and society more broadly.

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We are not through this pandemic, but we can see enough already to know there will be change.

For instance, we all can see that when schools are on holiday congestion eases noticeably. I’m told that this change reduces vehicle numbers by no more than ten or fifteen per cent yet the overall effect on traffic flow seems much greater.

Let’s keep the air quality improvements that lockdown demonstrated so clearly.

We should also use this opportunity to re-imagine our retail centres. Online shopping is only accelerating and councils, retailers and landlords need to smell the coffee. Most have started of course, but the pace of change has gone through the roof. People don’t need to come to town to shop and more and more people have realised this, as it was what they did during lockdown.

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But our town centres have roles beyond the purely economic, they have a social role and are important for community life.

They therefore need to evolve and adapt to survive and thrive, and be supported while they do. That is why the Government is bringing forward new rules to make it easier to change the use of empty premises to enable people to live in our town centres again. It is why we need to give a wider variety of reasons for people to come to our town centre – pop-up events, bars and restaurants, festivals, churches, community halls, bowling alleys, nurseries, outdoor markets and so on.

All these things will bring people together and into town, something we have so missed during lockdown.

They would contribute to making town centres more attractive to a visitor who will then choose to come and somewhere a resident will choose to live. And when they do visit and live there they will shop there too – particularly in the quirky independent shops where you can get local produce and goods that stand out from the standard.

But to go back to where I started.

We have the opportunity to change.

Now we need to choose to change.