London footfall fear as top firms aim to bring back half of workers

15 July 2020 by
London footfall fear as top firms aim to bring back half of workers

Operators' concerns about "deserted" London streets have taken a further setback after the City's top 30 businesses told police they aim to bring a maximum of 40% of the workforce back.

It came as a survey of 1,251 senior managers conducted by Opus Energy and Haven Power showed 48% would continue to let staff work from home.

One of the businesses surveyed told the MailOnline: "We are slowly increasing people in the office and we are currently at around 15%. For the next few months we are not going to be over half-full, but the aim is to build to that.

"We have got to keep the two-metre distancing between members of staff's desks, which means the capacity of the offices are greatly reduced."

Luke Johnson, chairman of Capital Risk Partners, said: "Places like London are deserted – shops, offices, stations are empty. The public are scared and public transport is dysfunctional. The government must stop Project Fear or our cities will suffer permanent damage."

Former Galvin at Windows general manager Fred Sirieix said London was "depressingly empty" last week.

The Caterer Breakfast Briefing Email

Start the working day with The Caterer’s free breakfast briefing email

Sign Up and manage your preferences below

Check mark icon
Thank you

You have successfully signed up for the Caterer Breakfast Briefing Email and will hear from us soon!

Jacobs Media is honoured to be the recipient of the 2020 Queen's Award for Enterprise.

The highest official awards for UK businesses since being established by royal warrant in 1965. Read more.

close

Ad Blocker detected

We have noticed you are using an adblocker and – although we support freedom of choice – we would like to ask you to enable ads on our site. They are an important revenue source which supports free access of our website's content, especially during the COVID-19 crisis.

trade tracker pixel tracking