Reply To: Lockdown – too soon or too slow

I’m in York – most people are still sticking to the rules, but we’re lucky in that the city is REALLY walkable or easy to cycle around.

The main streets are wide enough / pedestrianised so you can walk distanced from each other, but once shops start to open again it’ll get packed I think. The small alleys, snickets, ginnels and of course the famous Shambles and surrounding streets should stay closed for a long while yet.

It’s hard for many businesses here, because we started the year with horrendous flooding, too. In fact, the media SAID we had horrendous flooding, so our tourism plummeted. In reality, it affected none of the city centre and people could’ve easily enjoyed their visits here (the flooding WAS really bad, but the city is prepared for it and the defences held it back from the entire city centre other than a few riverside properties that normally flood anyway!). So, the city economy already took a massive hit at the start of the year, and now it’s facing an even bigger and longer-term downfall in trade. Tourism is the centre of our city economy here – and I think a LOT of places are going to close. But I’m not sure opening them up soon will do much – especially if hotels can’t yet open either. If people can’t come to stay here, they’re not likely to want to visit!