Time For Change

Businesses could not have foreseen Covid, but many were already struggling with high rents and rates, whilst had failed to adapt and embrace the digital age and lost out to online competition. Long before Covid, I was already saddened by so many independent shops being replaced by chains that proliferate streets across the country. Towns and cities can loose their character and charm and just become clones of one another. As with so many places, the Cambridge I knew before Covid will be a different place and will have to evolve, the empty premises will be replaced with new and interesting businesses or perhaps they will have to change function and be transformed into offices or homes. Nevertheless, having visited many towns and cities across Europe, and seeing how so many (even countries with a similar climate to the UK) have covered communal areas for families to eat and drink, be it a beer, wine or a coffee, why have we been so slow to change? Communal gathering of diffent generations can make the streets a safer place to be after dark. Here, it can be very difficult to even get a coffee after 8pm.