How working from home is changing Britain
How the pandemic changed our working week and what impact it's had on our cities, towns and villages.
Before the pandemic, for many of us, heading into the office from Monday to Friday was completely normal. But now, a typical week in the office runs from Tuesday to Thursday, a study of mobile phone activity suggests. Analysts Placemake.io and Visitor Insights examined anonymised phone data from more than 500 UK high streets from 2019 to 2022.
The study found increased activity in many suburban and small towns, which it linked to the trend for working from home. Seaside towns were significantly busier than before the Covid pandemic - Morecambe in Lancashire has seen a 70% rise in footfall, for example.
Mark Allan, chief executive of property firm LandSec, said Tuesday to Thursday was incredibly busy in the City of London, but activity on Mondays was only 50-60% of that level, and Fridays were almost as quiet as weekends. "We're not going back to how things were pre-Covid," he said.
For 5 Minutes On, the 大象传媒's Media and Arts Correspondent, David Sillito, heads to Budleigh Salterton in Devon - one of the seaside towns benefitting from our changing working habits.
Image Credit: Milangonda via Getty Images
