Fortunate to live in Cornwall
I work in Plymouth, my wife works for Cornwall Council, when lockdown began we were both sent home by our employers to start working from home. I think we‘ve quite enjoyed it, I’m saving time and money by not having to commute, my wife says she’s more productive working from home. So the change to our work life has been for the better, though my wife does miss seeing her colleagues.
When we’ve finished work we’ve enjoyed walking our dogs on the local trails, and as the roads have been much quieter, we‘ve gone on different walks and seen different things. There’s been are marked reduction in the amount of litter during lockdown which was good. I’ve enjoyed getting out on my bike riding local trails but also riding on the roads as the roads, I usually avoid cycling on the roads as before the lockdown I considered them to be too busy and dangerous. I’ve missed meeting friends to get out on the bike, but keep in contact on social media.
We’ve both missed seeing friends and family, and missed going out for meals, or a coffee.
On the whole we’ve enjoyed having more time by working from home and travelling less. I appreciate that not everyone can work from home, or wants to. We’ve enjoyed the peace of lockdown, less noise and traffic.
When lockdown eased and McDonalds re-opened the chaos came back, and within minutes of their re-opening the litter re-appeared. We hoped that people would change their ways and become less reliant on fast food, and other superficial junk to waste money on!
When the grants for small businesses was announced this was controversial in Cornwall, as a substantial amount was awarded to holiday lets. I think the council should regularly check the status of these holiday homes to check that they continue to meet the requirements of business rate relief. For example the council should ask the owners to provide a link to the properties agent or website, to check that the property is available for rent and is in fact rented out for the minimum number of weeks. This could potentially raise a considerable amount of council tax by removing holiday/2nd homes from the business rate relief for holiday lets.