Those who can work from home will make life better for those who cannot

Hamish McRae’s Tuesday article is probably predicting the likely outcome of the pandemic. But has the pandemic changed things forever?

For most people, it is personal circumstances that will dictate their reaction to Covid. If they have, or can find, a property with enough space and connectivity to work from home most of the time, they will choose to do so. The problem is supply and demand. The countryside will not be built over. Large towns and cities will not wither, much. We cannot build enough houses to meet demand, and most houses being built do not facilitate home working for two adults with two children or even a single adult in most cases.

Musculoskeletal problems will afflict many people due to the poor workstation layouts imposed by poor home facilities. The acoustic problems that multiple home workers create will also militate against this being possible, even were it desirable. However, many are used to working in cafes, on trains, and in cars, and short periods spent in such will be acceptable, perhaps. Or local shops will become work hubs. This hybrid working will reduce the overcrowding of many conurbations, and this may well make them more pleasant places to work a few days a week. If people spread their presence more or less equally, that’s 50 per cent fewer people at any one time.

On top of that, there is the tourism effect in our major cities. Summer was always worse in London when the tourists started to arrive, and winter always more pleasant when they left. If those numbers are also depressed by the UK’s changes to border policies following Brexit, and travel aversion due to Covid and its follow-ups, then cities will be nicer for the local population.

Fewer hotels, restaurants and entertainment venues able to survive such reductions will also reduce the crowds and waste problems. A quieter city will produce some economic challenges, but that may well make them more attractive to people for the longstanding reasons of convenience and the variety of services available nearby.

Those who can work from home will make life better for those who cannot.

As ever, this country (except perhaps London, of course) will find its infrastructure lacking, public transport inadequate, and everything just, well, inefficient. Until we wake up to the real long-term issues that a modern, sustainable society must address and adopt a degree of social engineering to put work where it is needed and well-suited, there is little point moaning about the risks of climate change when we need to get with the programme, invest, re-engineer, and redevelop as necessary to provide the economy and lifestyle that is needed.

Change is needed – many jobs will disappear, but others can be created if we become more self-sufficient as a nation, redevelop our towns and cities to create decent homes, workplaces, and sustainable communities (which means local schools; all social services; and shopping and entertainment in one place, or within 15 minutes). Good air quality and a pleasant public realm with adequate open space and facilities are essential.

We need to clear our industrial, commercial, and residential wastelands, rebuild them with these sustainable communities to carbon-negative standards and then concentrate on helping others do the same. There must be 100 years of work there, at least for anyone who no longer has a job in a city office, shop, hotel, cafe or theatre etc.

You cannot bake a good cake without breaking eggs. It took us 200 years to create this mess, and it will take at least 50 to sort it out and another 50 to take out the carbon emissions associated with it all.

Michael Mann

Shrewsbury

As a recent arrival from a red zone country (which I transited en route from my starting point in an amber zone country), I have a few questions for our authorities.

Why did it take four hours of seemingly endless and far-from socially distanced queuing and bussing to process me and my fellow arrivals before we were finally deposited in our quarantine hotels?

Why, on arrival, were we treated as certain carriers of Covid-19, despite some of us having received double vaccinations and all of us having negative PCR tests within the last 72 hours?

Why are we incarcerated for 11 nights with no room cleaning in that time, less exercise opportunity than prisoners in solitary confinement and an allowance for only seven small items for laundry in the entire quarantine sentence?

I only ask because I have travelled from South Sudan, one of the world’s poorest countries, where I was processed in a quarter of the time, with no less rigour, on entry and exit. I conclude that the authorities there could teach ours a thing or two, were ours humble enough to learn.

Prof Richard Carter

Bedfordshire

Both the prime minister and the new health secretary are adamant it’s time for Britain to learn to “live with Covid”. After so many months of unparalleled suppression in economic and cultural life, and with vaccines providing adequate protection against Covid, only the most obtuse control freaks oppose a return to normality.

The need now is for a steady hand on the political tiller and robust policies that can contain the ups and downs of cohabiting with the virus, especially in the fields of inpatient care, education and international travel.

Dr John Cameron

St Andrews

I totally concur with Keith Poole’s recent letter “We need a leader”.

It seems that government ministers and cabinet members can be appointed with little or no appropriate qualifications, competence or experience in the areas of their briefs, added to which the musical chairs syndrome of appointments makes a mockery of good governance. Especially if they can ignore/rebut advice from those who do know what they are talking about.

Just imagine if any of us could be appointed to jobs on this basis.

Now, what would I like to do? Er, maybe be chancellor, who’s to say I am not qualified?

Wendy Draper

Winchester

Could anything in these most difficult and dangerous times be more telling and prescient than the comment by Susan Alexander (letters Tuesday), “Should we not have realised by now that someone who desperately wants power is the last person who should have it?”

As with Trump, you can fool some/many of the people all of the time.

Ian Wingfield

Derbyshire