Lights go out as our city streets remain abandoned
THE Prime Minister has urged Britons to return to their workplaces as lockdown eases.
However, as these pictures show, things are far from normal on the country’s streets – in a stark reminder of the toll lockdown has taken on city centres.
Glasgow’s Buchanan Street is a famously bustling area where shoppers gather in droves as they make their way from one store to another.
However, yesterday it was a shadow of its former self – with far fewer consumers out and about.
Likewise, the city’s Broomielaw used to be a hot spot for office workers enjoying fresh air during their lunch break. Yesterday, the tree-lined walkway was all but abandoned.
The scene was replicated in London, where a picture taken from the Royal Observatory, at Greenwich, demonstrated just how few buildings are lit up at dusk. The desolate images of the country’s deserted city centres were captured as it emerged that only one civil servant in five has returned to work in the office.
Boris Johnson urged employees to stop working from home to try get the economy moving again. But in some Whitehall departments barely 10 per cent of staff are back at their desks. The same figure applies at HMRC, where flexible working was already the norm.
Only 4 per cent of professionals want to go back to spending four or five days a week in the office, according to research by recruitment agency Stanton House.
Almost a fifth want to work from home permanently, while 54 per cent want to go to the office one or two days a week.
A Government spokesman said of the return to work: ‘As we reopen our society and economy, it’s right that we give employers more discretion while continuing to ensure employees are kept safe.’
‘Ensure employees are kept safe’