Spent today in Manchester talking to businesses & workers in the city centre & suburbs. First, people are clearly not returning to offices “in huge numbers” as . @10DowningStreet claimed. Data & anecdotal evidence shows the opposite eg Piccadilly Station & B’ham - M’cr train 1/

2/ Now data. Worker footfall in Manchester - daytime, weekday mobile phone data - is 86% down on pre-lockdown. . @TfL data for tube journeys did show an 8% increase today on last Tuesday but it’s 72% down year-on-year. This is a tiny step, not “huge numbers”

3/ Manchester has been a model for city centre regeneration post-IRA bomb, and there‘a optimism that younger workers, many of whom live in new residential space, will come back quickly. There’s already more life in shared work spaces eg . @WeWork according to workers

4/ And what of workers? Those with significant daily commutes are very reluctant to give up the new balance in their lives. Northern Rail came up a lot. Adding two hours of expensive inefficiency to your day in exchange for an increased risk of catching Covid seems a poor trade

5/ It’s going to take more than political optimism to rescue city centres & a rebalancing of white-collar work feels inevitable. The tumbleweed will eventually have company, though maybe not enough to prevent ‘000s of redundancies. Better work for some may mean none for others