This Guardian article summarises the report and contains a link to the full, though redacted, 57 page report.

David Pegg  www.theguardian.com

What was Exercise Cygnus?

Exercise Cygnus was a 2016 government simulation of a flu outbreak, carried out to war-game the UK’s pandemic readiness. It involved 950 officials from central and local government, NHS organisations, prisons and local emergency response planners. A report on the exercise was compiled the following year and distributed among its participants.

The simulation took place over three days in October 2016 and asked participants to imagine they were fighting a fictitious “worst-case-scenario” flu pandemic affecting up to 50% of the population and causing up to 400,000 excess deaths.

What did it involve?

The scenario imagined that a new virus had emerged in Thailand in June, later identified as a strain of H2N2. Within a month the World Health Organization had declared a public emergency, triggering the UK’s response plans as the world mobilised to tackle an outbreak of “swan flu”.

For the three days of the exercise, officials were told to imagine they were managing the seventh week of the pandemic, facing a peak in demand for hospital and social care. The purpose of such simulations is generally not only to test how emergency plans would hold up under strain but also to acclimatise ministers and officials to the sorts of decisions they would be forced to make.

Mock Cobra meetings were held where ministers and officials were presented with situation reports from the ground, while reporters from a fictitious news organisation called WNN published news articles, and government social media campaigns were released on “Twister”.

What were its findings?

The Cygnus report was frank about the state of the UK’s readiness. “The UK’s preparedness and response, in terms of its plans, policies and capability, is currently not sufficient to cope with the extreme demands of a severe pandemic that will have a nationwide impact across all sectors,” it found.

One problem was that while each government body participating in the exercise had its own bespoke plans, enabling a flexible and decentralised response, nobody in the centre had oversight over everyone else.

In the absence of any “overview of pandemic response plans and procedures”, participants found it much harder to shift resources between one another so as react to unexpected rises and falls in demand for services such social care beds.

At this point in the online article is a box where you can download the redacted report as a 57 page pdf or use this link: 

https://www.scribd.com/document/460161101/Cygnus-Redacted-Annex-01scribd-Redactedv3#download&from_embed

In the language of the report: “The lack of joint tactical level plans was evidenced when the scenario demand for services outstripped the capacity of local responders, in the areas of excess deaths, social care and the NHS.”

Some organisations’ plans were severely out of date and sometimes referred to coordinating their response with bodies that no longer existed. Others were relying on an institutional memory of fighting the 2009 swine flu pandemic that was slowly fading.

What about social care?

Social care appears to have been of particular concern. Participants discovered it was extremely difficult to locate capacity in the care homes sector, partly because care homes are almost entirely privately run, making it difficult to clear hospital beds by moving patients into care homes.

“Local responders also raised concerns about the expectation that the social care system would be able to provide the level of support needed if the NHS implemented its proposed reverse triage plans, which would entail the movement of patients from hospitals into social care facilities,” the report said.

Cygnus found that the social care sector was “currently under significant pressure during business as usual,” and that in the event of a pandemic staff absenteeism through illness combined with widespread infection of the vulnerable “could be very challenging”.

What did Cygnus recommend?

The report listed four areas of “key learning” and 22 further “lessons identified” from the exercise, couched as recommendations to government. While some, such as those concerning the distribution of antivirals, are not relevant to a coronavirus pandemic, others are.

The recommendations included further modelling to understand the capacity of the care sector, further work to understand how the public would react to the crisis, and the creation of a “joint-level tactical plan” to help different organisations cooperate more effectively.

Some of the Cygnus recommendations, such as preparing legislation to relax certain laws and regulations, can be clearly seen in the government’s handling of Covid-19. A Department of Health spokesperson also mentioned excess deaths as an area where additional planning had been carried out.

There are questions as to whether other recommendations were followed in full. Care sector executives told the Guardian that they were unaware of having been asked to contribute to any methodology for assessing care home capacity.

Why hasn’t the report been published before now?

Though discussed at an NHS board meeting and mentioned in a speech by the former chief medical officer, the report on Cygnus has never been published, for reasons that are not entirely clear. The health secretary at the time of the exercise, Jeremy Hunt, has said he would be relaxed about the report being published.

In a response to a freedom of information request, the Department of Health claimed that the report needed to be kept secret so as to inform policy development.

However, the current health secretary, Matt Hancock, said in an interview with LBC last month that he had been told that all of its recommendations had already been implemented, suggesting its role in informing policy was complete.

A new community building boasting a library and café, youth centre and games area is proposed in the first plans for a long-awaited town centre in Cranbrook. (Outline plans of location shown in online link below)

Daniel Clark eastdevonnews.co.uk 

Devon County Council (DCC) has revealed outline proposals that also feature a children’s centre and public health nursing provision for the plot off Tillhouse Road and Cedar Close.

The ‘Cranbrook Community Building’ hub would house four of the authority’s service providers in a single place.

A small café would also feature in the library.

The children’s centre and public health nursing would share facilities, while the youth centre will provide indoor and outdoor recreational spaces including a multi-use games area.

It would only be a short walk away from the only building that has been so far been provided in the town centre -the Cranberry Farm pub.

Talks are under way for a Morrisons supermarket in the new town.

A planning statement with the application says: “The purpose of the Cranbrook Community Building is to provide community access to the facilities provided by Devon County Council.

“It provides suitably located and integrated indoor and outdoor space allowing service providers and Cranbrook residents to avail of social, leisure, health and community facilities.

“This location is considered appropriate for the facilities to be provided within the building for the residents of Cranbrook.”

DCC’s application is only in outline form and further, detailed proposals will need to be submitted and approved.

The trigger point for the provision of the children’s centre– 2,000 home occupations – was met last year.

This meant a consortium of developers in Cranbrook were required to construct the facility no later than June 2021.

The existing planning agreement also requires them to provide town council offices in the town centre by the same date.

Youth facilities and a library are required when the 3,450th home is occupied, but that is not expected to be until 2025.

The land earmarked for Cranbrook town centre.

DCC last autumn unanimously agreed to renegotiate the agreement so that the multi-purpose building could be built sooner than initially required.

The council’s own development management committee will determine the fate of the applicat

Police in Devon and Cornwall have urged people to ‘think twice’ about their actions this bank holiday weekend, as the country remains in lockdown.

Mike Smallcombe www.devonlive.com

Temperatures are set to soar for the first part of the three day break, while Friday also marks the 75th anniversary of VE Day.

Councils, emergency services and organisations across the region are pleading with holidaymakers and second home owners to stay away, while locals are being reminded to not break the current lockdown rules and head to public spaces in droves in a bid to make the most of the weather.

Devon and Cornwall Police is involved in a partnership campaign called ‘Think Twice’, which focuses on people making the right decisions to help stop the spread of the coronavirus. The message is before you decide to leave the house, ‘Think Twice’, as your actions count.

Assistant Chief Constable Glen Mayhew said: “This is an unprecedented public health emergency and it is taking an unprecedented national effort to fight this virus. What we do collectively can mean the difference between saving lives and risking lives.

“The lockdown that we are currently living through affects us; not being able to be with family or friends; impacts on peoples work and businesses; financial concerns and the impact that this plays on our mental health – this is a challenging time.

“We need to do all we can to prevent this virus from gaining the ability to escalate further. So I am asking you to ‘Think Twice’ before you consider leaving your home.”

ACC Mayhew said one particularly poignant event, which may tempt people to relax their compliance with the current government restrictions, is VE Day.

“VE Day allows us to all take some time to reflect on the sacrifice, courage and determination of those who played their part during the Second World War,” ACC Mayhew added.

“This is something that we should all keep at the front of our minds as we are all asked to do our part to help tackle the spread of this deadly virus. Please find the time to mark the VE Day celebrations and to do so in a safe way.

“Now is not the time to relax social distancing measures and to pop and see a few friends. The Government direction, at this time, continues to be to socially distance and it is important that we all adhere to it.

Devon and Cornwall is understandably proud of its renowned stunning coastlines, wide open spaces and gallons of fresh air and thrive from the millions of visitors who come to enjoy our part of the world each year.

However, the outbreak of coronavirus in the UK has changed our day to day lives while the government is calling for the nation to stop all non essential travel in a bid to stop the spread of the disease that has so tragically claimed lives in the UK.

In the South West not only do we have a proportion of elderly people living here, those who are some of the most vulnerable to coronavirus, but we also have NHS trusts that are stretched to capacity without any extra pressure.

We want to help saves lives and help bring an end to the outbreak as soon as we possibly can.

Therefore we are aiming to spread the message of come back later as far and as wide as possible through a campaign launching today – #comebacklater.

“An area that concerns me is the gathering of groups. Whilst we will continue to engage with people to understand, over the weekend my officers will enforce as a last resort.”

The force recently undertook a public survey seeking views on how Devon and Cornwall Police are working through the Covid-19 lockdown.

Over 91 percent of responses were supportive of the force’s current approach.

ACC Mayhew said: “The key to making this work within Cornwall, Devon and the Isles of Scilly is for everyone to continue to be fair and reasonable.

“Our approach, policing by consent with the public, partners and communities has been well received. This approach continues to not be taken lightly and we are fortunate that the vast majority of people not only in our counties but across the country are staying home and protecting lives.

“Thank you for all your support, and please ‘Think Twice’.”

Current trend is to increase development density. Gardens are getting smaller and in most cases can hardly be described as “private”. Most “allotments” are now “community gardens” and do not have the protection that a formal allotment has. EDDC refuses to countenance the creation of a new National Park which would put emphasis on using green space for recreation. EDDC prefers to have a freer hand over development in the AONB (which would become the National Park). – Owl could go on.

Sian de Bell, of Exeter University medical school and the lead author of the study, said: “A growing body of evidence points to the health and wellbeing benefits of access to green or coastal spaces. Our study is one of the largest to date to look at the benefits of gardens and gardening specifically.

Ben Webster, Environment Editor www.thetimes.co.uk

Spending time in the garden is as beneficial for health and wellbeing as living in a wealthy area, a study has found.

Scientists studied the impact of using a garden for relaxing or gardening and found that it could cancel out the health disadvantage of living in a poor area.

The study also found that people with access to a private garden had higher psychological wellbeing than those who did not. It concluded that private gardens were “a potential health resource” that could not necessarily be matched by having access to a park or public green space.

The team analysed data from nearly 8,000 people collected by Natural England between 2009 and 2016 and found that those who spent time in the garden were significantly more likely to report general good health and greater physical activity levels than those who did not.

Among those who regularly used their garden, 71 per cent reported high wellbeing compared with 61 per cent who did not use their garden. A similar difference in wellbeing was found between the highest and lowest income groups.

The Royal Horticultural Society, which contributed to the study, said that the results showed the need to ensure that developers provide private gardens when building estates. About 26 per cent of new homes do not have gardens, up from 18 per cent in 1996, and the average garden has been getting smaller, according to previous research.

Sian de Bell, of Exeter University medical school and the lead author of the study, said: “A growing body of evidence points to the health and wellbeing benefits of access to green or coastal spaces. Our study is one of the largest to date to look at the benefits of gardens and gardening specifically.

“Our findings suggest that whilst being able to access an outdoor space such as a garden or yard is important, using that space is what really leads to benefits for health and wellbeing.”

Dr Mathew White, a co-author also from Exeter University, said: “If you live in a poor area, you can at least use your garden to give you the same level of health you would have if you lived in a rich area and did not use your garden. People in richer areas are generally healthier but if they don’t use their garden, their health is the same as people who live in poorer areas who do use their garden.”

Professor Alistair Griffiths, director of science at the Royal Horticultural Society and co-author of the paper in the journal Landscape and Urban Planning, said: “This work adds to the increasing body of scientific evidence on the health benefits of gardens and gardening. As the Covid crisis has demonstrated, there’s an urgent need to include the provision of private gardens in the planning process to better support the UK’s preventative health agenda and the wellbeing of our nation.”

Marian Spain, the interim chief executive of Natural England, said that the benefits of spending time in back gardens or other green spaces could not be overestimated “and this research shines a light on the impact this has on people’s health and wellbeing”.

Owl thinks this a fitting commemoration of VE-day across East Devon. It evokes war time life in a small seaside town in rural Devon, including the dialect.

A film capturing life in Budleigh Salterton during World War Two has been made available to view free of charge as local residents commemorate the anniversary of VE Day.

Philippa Davies www.exmouthjournal.co.uk 

Budleigh At War centres around a voice recording made by a man who was evacuated to the town from Bristol as a young teenager with his mother and siblings in 1941.

Richard Dellenty attended the town’s school and then worked as a telegraph boy at Budleigh Salterton Post Office, before leaving to join the Navy in 1944.

During this time, he made friends with an East Budleigh woman, Ms Olive Dyer, and 40 years later he made a recording for her, talking about his memories of the wartime years in Budleigh.

The recording eventually found its way to Budleigh historian Nick Loman through the wife of a friend, and he realised it was a ‘wonderful piece of history’, featuring people and places that were well-known to many residents.

Mr Loman turned it into a DVD film, illustrating the commentary with archive photos, old film footage and illustrations by Budleigh artist Jed Falby.

During the course of the recording, Mr Dellenty talks about the way the people of Budleigh ‘adopted’ him and his family.

He remembers acts of kindness shown to him when he arrived, including being given a Chelsea bun by the bakery on his first morning in the town.

He describes his first girlfriend from the school, who was later killed in an air raid over Exmouth.

He talks at length about his job with the Post Office and his memories of working as a telegraph boy, including the chore of having to deliver telegrams to Dalditch Royal Marines training camp on Woodbury Common.

He also describes the bombing of the parish church in a daylight attack in 1942, as he was heading home for his lunch break.

His recording is a mixture of sadness, humour, and detailed personal memories that will strike a chord with many residents.

Mr Loman originally released the 45-minute DVD on sale to the public, but as the 75th anniversary of VE Day approached, he decided to upload it to YouTube so that anyone could watch it free of charge and get a real insight into what life was like in Budleigh during World War Two.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BUk2YgNEaE

The administrator of Flybe has warned that a sale of the failed airline is at risk from the potential loss of its operating licence and the crisis in the industry.

Alex Ralph  www.thetimes.co.uk 

EY, appointed in March after Europe’s biggest regional carrier collapsed, has received about 20 non-binding offers, including for the majority of the remaining business, according to the joint administrators’ proposals. However, EY said that global travel restrictions meant that the timeframe to complete any sale was challenging and, coupled with the uncertainty over the future of the airline industry, had resulted in “capital constraints, eroding valuations and diminished bidder appetite”.

If a sale of all or part of Flybe’s business cannot be completed, EY will try to sell its assets.

The disposal is also threatened by the Civil Aviation Authority, the regulator, agreeing that Flybe’s operating licence should be revoked. The CAA, EY said, had argued that the sale’s progress “did not support a realistic prospect of a transaction”. EY disagreed and had 14 days from April 16 to appeal to Grant Shapps, the transport secretary.

The administrator said: “For the avoidance of doubt, it is unlikely that a business sale, including the transfer of existing employees, will be possible if the operating licence is revoked since it prevents the sale of the airport slots, which would be central to any bid for the business.”

A spokesman for the CAA said the secretary of state would now “decide whether to uphold, reverse or vary” the CAA’s decision, which it issued last month.

Flybe operated just over half of domestic flights outside London. It carried eight million passengers last year, flying between 71 airports in the UK and mainland Europe, including Southampton, Exeter and Aberdeen.

It was acquired last year by Connect Airways, a consortium made up of Virgin Atlantic, part-owned by Sir Richard Branson, Cyrus Capital, the Mayfair-based hedge fund, and Stobart Group, owner of Southend airport.

EY said that indications from secured creditors were that the outstanding secured debt was £135.6 million, but that was under review. Claims from unsecured creditors, mainly about 900,000 customers, are in the region of £317 million. They are expected to receive less than 1p in the pound.

The results of hundreds of thousands of coronavirus tests carried out at privately run drive-through centres in England have not yet been shared with GPs or local authorities, who complain they have “no idea” where local disease clusters are.

Juliette Garside www.theguardian.com 

GPs told the Guardian they had been “totally left out of the conversation” after the government said it was still “working on a technical solution” to get Covid-19 test results into individual GP records in England, having promised to do so weeks ago.

Meanwhile, the chief medical officer for England, Prof Chris Whitty, apologised to local health leaders who have not yet received any detailed data from “pillar two” tests conducted by the private firm Deloitte over the past month. These now form the majority of tests being carried out each day, either at drive-through testing centres or via the post.

During a conference call on Wednesday with directors of public health at local authorities across England, the government’s national coordinator of the UK coronavirus testing programme, Prof John Newton, also apologised for not yet sharing the detailed data. He said there had been “data quality issues”.

Newton admitted that the Deloitte tests did not yet ask people for their ethnicity or whether they worked in health or social care – an oversight described by one director of public health on the call as “really disappointing”. People of colour and healthcare workers and those working in care homes are known to have much higher incidences of the disease.

When the government began its pillar two testing scheme in late March it promised GPs that results would be linked to the medical records of patients in England.

But Nick Mann, a GP at the Well Street surgery in Hackney, London, is one of many doctors to complain this has not happened. “As a GP I’m absolutely fuming, not only with the way it’s been mishandled but with the unreliable information we are getting,” he said. “This government has developed a completely parallel system in order to bypass the NHS, and it’s failing.”

Helen Salisbury, a GP at the Observatory Practice in Oxford, has 100 suspected cases on her list and only five with a confirmed positive test. “We have had absolutely zero information. The only way I know if a patient of mine has tested positive for Covid is if they have been ill enough to be admitted to hospital. It feels like we’ve been completely left out of the conversation, whereas most of the Covid out there is being handled by GPs,” she said.

Those responsible for coordinating the coronavirus response at local authority level in England also say they have not yet received any detailed data from the Deloitte tests.

Dominic Harrison, director of public health at Blackburn with Darwen council in Lancashire, said: “The Deloitte screening programme has now been running for a number of weeks and we have seen no data from that. So I have no idea whether 10, 100 or 1,000 Blackburn with Darwen residents have tested positive.

“I certainly hope they sort that out very very quickly because it is critical information for us in developing the strategy for case finding and contract tracing once the lockdown is lifted..”

Colin Cox, director of public health in Cumbria, said he had received only headline figures from the Deloitte testing centre in Penrith, and no postcode-level data to identify any local clusters.

“We’ll certainly need that level of detail once we get back to a process of contact tracing (though lots of that will be a national process not a local one). Before then, there wouldn’t be a clear policy response to knowing that. But certainly the fragmentation of the testing system has been a challenge,” he said.

Greg Fell, director of public health in Sheffield, said: “If we really want to get to grips with who has tested positive and chasing down their contacts, we need this detailed data fairly rapidly, particularly when the lockdown restrictions are relaxed.”

Prof Martin Marshall, chair of the Royal College of GPs, said: “We would expect GPs to receive a timely copy of a patient’s results, particularly if they are positive, so that we can provide appropriate clinical advice for patients – not just about Covid-19, but having a full picture of a patient’s health, including their medical history, will help us to deliver holistic care to them for other conditions and illnesses.”

This week health ministers in Scotland complained that they had been barred from seeing thousands of coronavirus results from rapid testing sites for weeks because of data restrictions imposed by the UK government.

The Department for Health and Social Care said data from the pillar two testing programme was shared daily with Public Health England, National Services Scotland and the Public Health Agency in Northern Ireland, and would soonbe shared hourly.

“We are working on a solution for local authorities to access data to support local and regional decision-making,” a spokesman said. “We are actively planning to get Covid-19 test results into individual GP records in England. NHS Digital are leading on this, and it involves working closely with the Royal College of GPs and the British Medical Association.

“This needs to be carefully done to minimise any clinical safety risks and ensure it is done accurately. We are making good progress on the technical solution for this work but it will take some time. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will have their own processes relating to healthcare records.”

Deloitte has been approached for comment.

A secret government report that said the UK was not prepared for a pandemic and forewarned of the Covid-19 crisis in care homes is being published by the Guardian.

David Conn  www.theguardian.com 

The report is based on the findings of a government simulation of an influenza pandemic, codenamed Exercise Cygnus. It concluded starkly that Britain was not adequately prepared for a flu-like pandemic’s “extreme demands”.

The 2017 report is likely to raise questions over whether ministers ever implemented key recommendations pertaining to the care home sector.

It contained 26 key recommendations, including boosting the capacity of care homes and the numbers of staff available to work in them. It also warned of the challenge facing homes asked to take in patients from hospitals.

Asked recently about the report on Exercise Cygnus, the health secretary, Matt Hancock, said he had been assured by officials at the Department of Health that “everything that was recommended was done”.

However, Martin Green, the chief executive of Care England, which represents the largest independent care home providers, said concerns raised by the exercise about the social care system’s ability to handle patients discharged from hospitals and the need for the largest private care providers to increase capacity were not raised by government agencies with his members.

“It beggars belief,” Green told the Guardian. “This is a report that made some really clear recommendations that haven’t been implemented. If they had put in place a response to every one, we would have been in a much better place at the start of this pandemic.”

Covid-19 has swept through the UK’s care homes, killing 6,686 people up to 1 May in England and Wales, in some cases claiming dozens of lives in a single facility. Operators have been beset by shortages of essential personal protective equipment (PPE) to protect staff and limit the spread of the virus among residents who are by definition the most vulnerable to the disease.

With a third of all Covid-19 deaths so far being recorded in care homes, Boris Johnson told parliament on Wednesday: “There is an epidemic going on in care homes, which is something I bitterly regret.”

The government has kept the Exercise Cygnus report secret since it was first circulated in Whitehall three years ago, and has resisted growing calls for more transparency, which culminated in the announcement of a legal case to force ministers to release the findings. However a copy was leaked to the Guardian, which is publishing the document in the public interest.

The report, marked “Official – Sensitive”, is being published in full, although names and email addresses of government officials have been redacted.

Public Health England ran the Cygnus exercise in October 2016, coordinating more than 950 people, from Department of Health ministers to teams of local emergency planners and prison officers, to test the UK’s response to a new global pandemic, envisaged to be influenza.

The exercise included four dummy meetings of Cobra, the government’s emergency response system, over three days, as ministers and officials were tasked with imagining the UK was facing the peak of infections.

A report on Exercise Cygnus was produced in July 2017 and sent to all major government departments, NHS England, and the devolved administrations of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

It stated as its “key learning” that “the UK’s preparedness and response, in terms of its plans, policies and capability, is currently not sufficient to cope with the extreme demands of a severe pandemic that will have a nationwide impact across all sectors”.

The report recommended that a comprehensive “pandemic concept of operations” be created and that NHS England should conduct further work to prepare “surge capacity” in the health service.

It explicitly recommended that the social care system needed to be able to expand if it were to cope with a “worst-case scenario pandemic”, and that money should be ringfenced to provide extra capacity and support to the NHS.

It also said the Department of Health should consider bringing back “recently retired nurses and care workers to deal with the extra strain on the system”. Such staff could be involved in “vital tasks”, it said, including “opening up more distribution points for personal protective equipment (PPE) and working on essential communications to the public”.

Concerns were raised about the ability of the social care system to “provide the level of support needed if the NHS implemented its proposed reverse triage plans, which would entail the movement of patients from hospitals into social care facilities”.

During the coronavirus crisis, care homes have been asked to take recovering Covid-19 patients, leading to concerns that they may spread the infection if not properly isolated and treated, which is not always possible in care settings.

When Hancock was asked about Exercise Cygnus on 28 April, on LBC radio, he replied: “I asked my officials to go back when this first came up in the press a few weeks ago and check that everything that was recommended was done and that’s the assurance that I got.”

However, senior figures in the care sector are raising questions about whether the recommendations pertaining to the care sector have been implemented in full.

Vic Rayner, the chief executive of the National Care Forum, said: “The sort of plan you might anticipate coming from these recommendations has not been evident in terms of a national or local government approach. They might have done this planning behind the scenes, but they haven’t involved the care providers.”

The report states that the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services, whose members commission care services, should be involved in developing a way to assess surge capacity in social care during a pandemic. However, the Guardian understands the association was not asked to do so.

Care England’s Green said the recommendations for expanding capacity and staff levels were not discussed with providers following the 2017 report.

“Nobody has ever had that conversation with us,” he said. “Care England has been talking about providing extra capacity for years. We have been telling them that we have capacity and people don’t need to be in hospital. But we have got nowhere.”

In response to a freedom of information request by the Guardian last month, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) refused to publish the report on Exercise Cygnus, claiming that it would “prohibitively impact the ability of ministers to meet with officials and external stakeholders to discuss ongoing policy development”.

The report on at least one similar previous exercise, Winter Willow, has been published without controversy. Last month solicitors at Leigh Day announced that an NHS doctor had instructed them to pursue legal action against the DHSC to try to force the release of the report.

Moosa Qureshi, whose case is being crowdfunded, argued there was an “exceptionally strong public interest in the publication of the report given the lessons and recommendations are directly relevant to the system and procedures that have been developed”.

A government spokesperson said that lessons from Exercise Cygnus had been learned and continued to be considered.

“The UK is one of the most prepared countries in the world and, as the public would expect, we regularly test our plans. What we learned from previous exercises helped us to rapidly respond to this unprecedented global crisis,” the spokesperson said. “We have followed a science-led action plan designed at all times to save lives and support our NHS.

“Our planning helped prevent the NHS being overwhelmed and means we are now moving past the peak of the virus.”

As might be expected, an example of pressure from the tourism industry to open up the economy.

Owl’s view is that tourism is the “icing on the cake” and shouldn’t be seen as the bedrock of a successful and sustainable local economy, though it suits “a few” very well. (This 2017 post is also relevant)

This probably accounts for the recent analysis that 31% of jobs in East Devon were at risk.

Laura O’Callaghan  www.express.co.uk 

Cornwall: Coronavirus’ impact on tourism revealed by expert

Malcolm Bell, chief executive of Visit Cornwall, said if the nationwide lockdown is not lifted by summer many employers in the county will have reached the point of no return. During and around the Easter holidays the population of Cornwall usually jumps by about a third due to tourism.

But this year has played host to an unprecedented period with hotels, caravan parks, restaurants and pubs forced to close and a local campaign urging visitors to stay away over fears they could spread coronavirus.

The loss of custom has meant the local industry is down about £300 million.

And Mr Bell predicts Cornwall tourism industry could be setback more than £1 billion if premises are not allowed to reopen for the peak months.

He told Sky News: “For the worst-case scenario, which we hope will never happen, if this went through to August we would be talking about £1.2 billion worth of loss.

“According to our research it would be the end of 80 percent of the businesses.”

Mr Bell described how many businesses in one of England’s most popular tourism destinations have found themselves at “their lowest cash point”.

He said many owners in Cornwall have been inching closer to their overdraft limit and have been hit with a double whammy.

While the money is not coming in due to their business being ordered to close, customers who have paid in full or a deposit are seeking refunds.

Coronavirus: Expert discusses ‘worrying’ impact on tourism

Mr Bell added: “Many businesses are at their lowest cash point – they’ve gone through their winter eking out the cash.”

“It’s actually worse than that – many businesses are close to their overdraft limit and of course now not only is no money coming in, you’ve got customers wanting their money back.

“Many businesses invested heavily during the winter.”

Mr Bell told predicts the loss of businesses could be reduced to five percent if the lockdown was lifted by May or June at the latest.

“Two-thirds of income is made in spring and summer,” he added.

Locals in the south-west county have been pushing the #ComeBackLater campaign urging non-residents to stay away until the COVID-19 outbreak is under control.

There has been anger towards Britons with second homes in the picturesque county who have retreated from cities at the risk of spreading the virus to locals.

On Monday, Cornwall Council issued a statement encouraging holidaymakers to postpone their trips instead of cancelling.

Council leader Rob Nolan said: “We are hearing that many people who have booked accommodation directly with holiday businesses have agreed that, rather than cancel their intended visit which was due to have taken place during the lockdown period, they will change dates or keep the booking open until the current lockdown is lifted.”

“These voluntary arrangements show that many customers are keen to have a holiday in Cornwall to look forward to once the current restrictions are lifted.

“By being flexible they have in-turn helped those businesses who are affected due to the financial impact of the current situation.

“Holiday accommodation businesses value their customers so will be working with them to give them the best possible service, but things may take a bit longer than usual to sort out because of the unprecedented situation we all find ourselves in.”

Last Thursday the Government extended the coronavirus lockdown for “at least” three weeks.

East Devon District Council has made £46,000 available to projects supporting residents who are in food poverty during the Coronavirus situation.

Chris Carson  www.midweekherald.co.uk

The council has already granted: £1,800 to Honiton’s TRIP Community Transport Association to help them deliver hot food and other meals to vulnerable people in the local community.

£1,000 to Axminster Food Bank for supplies such as nappies, household items and cleaning products that they desperately need, which will then be given out to local people in need.

£1,800 to Honiton’s 55+ Centre to support them in providing meals for vulnerable people in Honiton.

£1,000 to Nourish, Axminster, to help pay for the costs of the packaging and delivering meals to vulnerable people.

£1,500 to The Random Kitchen, who are making meals and delivering them to vulnerable people in and around the Honiton area.

Grants of between £500 and £2,500 are available.

Projects that could be eligible for the funding include:

A food bank where stocks of items are running low and they need an immediate donation to enable them to restock.

New equipment/resources that allow groups to have the capacity for the increased number of people needing their food related service.

A service providing hot meals delivered to the homes of vulnerable people, children or adults, who might otherwise not have a hot meal.

Costs related to collecting food donations and delivering food to those in need.

Training of staff and volunteers working on food related projects. It can be used to fund eligible capital – so for physical things like equipment – and revenue costs (so for things like training, petrol costs.

Applications are accepted from constituted and not-for-private-profit voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) sector groups and organisations, town and parish councils, charities, or a combination of such groups working together.

The group applying must have a bank account. Non-constituted groups without their own, separate bank account may apply but they will need to do so with the support of an accountable constituted organisation acting on their behalf.

EDDC leader Cllr Ben Ingham said: “I’m really pleased that we’re able to help projects and activities that are making such a big difference to vulnerable people in our communities.

“This is a way of us saying thank you to community groups, town and parish councils and other organisations for all their hard work.

“These are the first two of hopefully many grants to come.”

To find out more about the fund and apply, visit East Devon District Council’s coronavirus community food fund section of its website at http://www.eastdevon.gov.uk

Recycling centres in Exmouth, Sidmouth, Honiton and Exeter will reopen ‘for essential use only’ from Monday, May 11.

East Devon Reporter eastdevonnews.co.uk 

The facilities – among 19 across Devon shut since March 24 – will be subject to a ‘one-in, one-out’ policy and two-metre social distancing rules.

County council bosses say staff will be unable to help with unloading rubbish and are predicting ‘significant delays and queues’.

Vans, trailers and pick-up trucks will initially be barred.

The Government has defined ‘essential use’ as items that ‘cannot be stored without causing a risk of injury, health or harm to the resident or other members of their household’.

Residents are being urged to follow Whitehall guidance and only travel to recycling centres if waste ‘presents a hazard and cannot be legally and responsibly disposed of in other ways’.

The East Devon and Exeter tips will operate their ‘usual opening hours’.

They include Knowle Hill Recycling Centre, off Salterton Road, Exmouth, Sidmouth Recycling Centre, at the Bowd, and Sutton Barton Recycling Centre in Widworthy, Honiton.

Exeter’s Exton Road Recycling Centre and Pinbrook Road Recycling Centre, in Pinhoe, will also reopen.

Devon County Council (DCC) says the move is part of a ‘phased’ reopening and is subject to any further government announcements.

A spokesperson added: “To protect the public and staff, a series of health protection measures will be in force at each centre, including a one-in, one-out policy and the two-metre social distancing guidelines.

“Unfortunately, this means for the time being site staff will not be able to assist with unloading waste.

“These measures are likely to cause significant delays and queues and residents are advised to postpone their visit where possible.”

DCC also says that:

• Residents displaying coronavirus symptoms are asked not to visit the recycling centres;
• Only cars without trailers, with a maximum of two adults per vehicle, will be permitted on site;
• To keep unloading times to a minimum, trailers, vans, pick-ups and commercial vehicles will not be granted access for the time-being;
• Payments on-site must be by credit/debit card only.

Councillor Andrea Davis, DCC cabinet member for infrastructure, development and waste, said: “We understand that storing some waste for long periods may not be safe and that is why, following government guidance, we are reopening our recycling centres for essential use only.

“The safety of the public and staff is our top priority and lengthy waiting times should be expected due to the new restrictions in place.

“We ask you to avoid queuing on the public highway and if it is very busy to come back later.

“In the first instance, we ask that if people cannot store waste at home, they should use the regular kerbside collections for disposal.

“If, however, the waste is presenting a hazard and there is no other legal way of disposing of it, then they can bring it to our recycling centres.

“We are working to restore normal service as soon as it is safe to do so and we appreciate your patience at this time.”

Owl was gently taken to task by a reader, Stephen Pemberton, for the way the flippant reference to “King Canute” in the recent post on storm damage to Sidmouth could be misconstrued. 

It was intended to reflect Owl’s experiences of the enormous power nature can release in storms and Owl’s experiences of how a number of Devon seaside towns have struggled over the years to save their beaches. Readers will probably most easily relate to the way the storm of early February 2014 cut the rail line at Dawlish. 

It wasn’t intended to downplay the need to protect Sidmouth where the storm and rising sea level threat isn’t confined to the beach but is a very real and present threat to the Town itself.

Stephen had a letter published in the Sidmouth Herald 24 April. This set out the EDDC position in relation to the Beach Management Plan (BMP) and reflects his evident frustration with decades of ineffective action. He has agreed to let Owl post it below. 

Before doing that, Owl has received other comments, which agree on some main points Stepehn made in correspondence. These help set the scene, especially for those who are not Sidmouth residents:

• The rock revetment (rock armour) in front of the Esplanade, installed c.1992, has worked well.   The vibration of Sidmouth houses stopped overnight when it was installed and the Town has not suffered any vibration since.  The cost was £750,000 and it will probably be good for another hundred years. 
• The two offshore breakwaters constructed c 1994 have also been very successful in creating a high “design level” beach, and, as a bonus, a sandy foreshore. The problem is that a third island, recommended by the consultants, was rejected at the time. EDDC have always refused subsequently to consider this option, despite the fact that it is cheaper than the current preferred option, and might, by reference to the experience gained from the existing breakwaters, avoid or reduce the need for subsequent replenishment of beach material (also known as beach recharging) by maintaining a high beach level. 
• There is deep controversy over action/inaction at Pennington Point to the east. Here cliff erosion appears to have accelerated over predictions made only four years ago. EDDC currently refuse to carry out emergency works to protect the town from flooding via the “backdoor” river frontage.  EDDC’s solution of using a very large groyne is also considered controversial because it is more expensive than a revetment option that consultants have publicly stated would be more effective (and would be cheaper). The aim is to reduce undercutting of the cliffs by wave action. 
• The BMP also involves the construction of a “splash wall “ varying in height from 1m to 1.3m. Vandalism of an armoured glass trial panel has set back this element of the plan. 
• One of the central difficulties on costs concerns assumptions made on the frequency of the need for recycling beach material and for its replenishment. A sticking point with EDDC is always going to be the cost of replenishing a beach that is ultimately going to be washed away by the natural process of the eastward longshore drift. In fact EDDC haven’t maintained the design level for the beach since 1992. 
• There is still a £1M shortfall in funding for the preferred option. If the funding cannot be raised by December 2020, the council will have to review the project aims and possible management scheme options. There is also the question of ongoing costs.

(Owl’s view is that strategic costs of this sort should really be funded by central government).

Letter published in the Sidmouth Herald   24 April 2020 

Urgent and Emergency Works Pennington Point and East Beach:

Following recent communications over the need for action, and urgent and emergency Works at Pennington Point and along East Beach thank you to all those who replied.

The cliffs though, continue to collapse almost daily. It is the case, it would seem, that some appear to follow the EDDC position unquestionably; giving reasons to legitimate preventing action; some unthinkingly saying that all cliffs will naturally erode, without ‘seeing’ the consequences. 

EDDC is responsible for action and for urgent and emergency works. The EDDC CEO, Strategic Lead for Housing, Health and Environment, Leader of the Council, Service Lead, StreetScene, (copied to Simon Jupp, MP and George Eustace, MP), accept no responsibility for any undue outcome. 

They say: EDDC are not responsible. EDDC have permissive powers to carry out works at its discretion. EDDC are the Risk Management Authority acting as the Coastal Protection Authority. Coastal protection authorities and the Environment Agency have permissive powers to protect against coastal flooding and to carry out erosion defence works. However this is not a legal obligation. This means East Devon District Council has the “power to” carry out coastal protection works but is not duty bound to do so and will not be liable for the failure to exercise these powers. Contractors are on-site willing and able to carry out the Works. 

The EDDC position raises concerns about the effective progress made of the BMP and other measures this past number of decades. EDDC and Sidmouth Town Council Councillors and Officers and MP’s need to be aware of the EDDC position, and of the responsibility and accountability they have in the prevention of Flooding to Sidmouth. 

Stephen Pemberton, SIDMOUTH,      

CPRE calls for action to keep planning democratic – EDDC is operating behind closed doors – Owl

In the wake of new measures brought in to help build quickly during the coronavirus pandemic, we’re calling on the government to make sure local communities are still able to play their role in our planning system.

www.cpre.org.uk

The government recently made some changes to the way local planning works to make sure it can respond quickly to public health needs during the coronavirus pandemic. This has enabled buildings such as the Nightingale hospitals to be set up within a fortnight. Naturally, these unusual times called for unusual measures – but we want to make sure that changes made to the planning system aren’t abused in the short term or undermine community-led planning in the future.

A robust, functional planning system is important because it ensures we build quality infrastructure in the places we need, use land efficiently and safeguard the countryside for all of us.

‘Planning ensures that the right development happens in the right place at the right time, benefitting communities and the economy. It plays a critical role in identifying what development is needed and where, what areas need to be protected or enhanced and in assessing whether proposed development is suitable.’ (Plain English Guide to the Planning System, gov.uk)

Planning for a post-pandemic world

Right now, people’s health has quite rightly been put first. But there are already signs that these new powers are being misused in some areas. Some planning meetings have been closed to the public (as reported by CPRE London) and large decisions that would normally be made by a panel of elected councillors are instead being taken behind closed doors by officers. Unless the government moves quickly to make sure the public can still engage with planning committees on major decisions, there’s a risk of undermining our planning system permanently.

The government’s new rules do give opportunities to help open ‘virtual planning committees’ to more people by taking them online. We’d like to see the government direct councils to take advantage of that technology to give them the best chance of making decisions that are best for communities. Normally, people can engage with the planning system to help positively shape the future of their area by providing insight and expertise on things such as proposed developments happening nearby.

Take action

This public oversight is the heartbeat of our democratic planning system. We’re calling on the government to make sure all major planning decisions can be scrutinised as normal, with members of the public given the right and opportunities to speak up. Doing this well will require an increased effort to include those who might not have access to digital technology.

We’d really like it if you can add your voice to ours. Please click here now to ask your MP to defend our democratic planning system.

The Leader of East Devon District Council, councillor Ben Ingham, is asking second home owners, day trippers and holiday makers to stay away from Exmouth and the rest of East Devon over the Spring Bank Holiday.

Joseph Bulmer exmouth.nub.news 

He is concerned that visitors and day trippers may be tempted to visit East Devon on the bank holiday and create a spike in Coronavirus cases in the South West, which has so far been spared the high number of cases seen elsewhere.

He is also reaching out to East Devon residents to ask them to continue to respect Government guidance, which is:

-To only leave or be away from your home for very limited purposes, such as shopping for basic necessities, as infrequently as possible

-One form of exercise a day, for example a run, walk, or cycle – alone or with members of your household

-Any medical need, including to donate blood, avoid injury or illness, escape risk of harm, or to provide care or to help a vulnerable person

-For travelling for work purposes, but only where you cannot work from home.

The government has stressed that even when doing these activities, you should be minimising time spent away from the home and ensuring that you are two metres apart from anyone outside of your household.

Councillor Ingham’s message: “I would personally like to thank all the people who have so far been respecting the lock down guidance. It is clearly paying off as we have not seen the large number of cases here, which other parts of the country have experienced.

“I’d like to thank all the second home owners and tourists who, by staying away during the previous bank holiday, have helped protect our communities, our vulnerable residents and kept the pressure off our local services.

“But I must ask you again to please keep up the good work and to continue to stay at home in your primary residence, in your home county. Doing this will prevent the spread of coronavirus, it will protect your health and the health of loved ones and it will save lives.

“We will see you again when it is safe for us and you, but in the meantime please don’t come to East Devon. Thank you.

“For our local residents, my message is clear. Don’t be tempted to break the rules, please keep local and take your daily exercise close to your home.

“We are fortunate to have many parks and open spaces, which are now open again, bar a number of small parks which we feel will be difficult for the public to maintain robust social distancing within. However, parks should be used for essential exercise and not for sunbathing, picnics, barbeques or sports – doing this puts everyone’s health at risk.

“If you are exercising, please stay local and avoid areas when busy. Always maintain a 2metre distance from others. If you don’t observe social distancing or congregate in our parks, we may be forced to close them again. So please don’t be tempted to break the rules.”

Yesterday the Sydney Morning Herald – so today for comparison (if you’re not entirely done with reading history in the making) the take from the New Yorker – very different style.

Sam Knight www.newyorker.com 

On Sunday, the toll from Britain’s outbreak of COVID-19 surpassed twenty-eight thousand deaths. You don’t need a graph, or to argue about the methodological niceties of how governments count their dead, to understand that the United Kingdom has had a terrible encounter with the virus. Britain has an internationally respected public-health apparatus. In October, 2016, the government ran Exercise Cygnus, a simulation of how a global influenza pandemic would overwhelm the nation’s health system and ravage the economy. Last year, Britain’s National Security Risk Assessment highlighted the risk of a mutated-flu outbreak as one of the worst—and most likely—risks facing the country, as well as the possibility of “an emerging respiratory coronavirus infection” arriving in the U.K. The Department of Health continues to describe Britain as “one of the most prepared countries in the world for pandemics.” And yet. In the weeks after December 30th, last year, when Chinese officials first informed the World Health Organization of a novel coronavirus in Wuhan, the U.K. made no striking plans to respond. Even as the virus tore through Northern Italy, and the British authorities had a chance to see, at relatively close quarters, what COVID-19 could do to a prosperous European society, they dithered. Countries such as Germany, South Korea, and Singapore, which have responded well to the virus, all appear to have followed a similar playbook of mass testing, contact tracing, and collective vigilance. Each nation that has failed is more likely to have its own particular story of what went wrong. We are unhappy in our own way.

In Britain, the most obvious misstep by Boris Johnson’s government was its hesitation to implement a national lockdown to slow the spread of the virus. During February and the early part of March, Johnson and his Cabinet embraced and then abandoned the concept of herd immunity. On March 13th, Graham Medley, of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, who is the government’s chief modeller of the pandemic, told the BBC that in an ideal world there would be “a nice big epidemic” among the healthy part of the population. “What we are going to have to try and do, ideally, is . . . manage this acquisition of herd immunity and minimize the exposure of people who are vulnerable,” he said. Ministers quickly denied that this was the strategy, because it entailed the risk of two hundred and fifty thousand deaths, but Johnson did not switch to stringent quarantine measures until March 23rd. There was a directionless, ten-day period in which the virus was able to circulate more or less freely. Soccer matches and horse-racing festivals went ahead. Johnson joked about shaking people’s hands. Thousands of people became infected and later died. The reasons behind this drift are complex and contested. Since the start of the crisis, Britain’s politicians have sworn that they were following “the science,” even when it was clear that they were latching onto concepts, such as herd immunity and behavioral fatigue (in which people would supposedly tire of social-distancing measures), because they liked the sound of them. At the same time, the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, a revolving panel of some twenty experts, and its various specialist subcommittees, also appears to have given advice that was politically viable rather than aimed solely at saving lives.

But Britain’s slow lockdown offers only a partial explanation for what has followed. Germany shut down one day earlier but has had around a quarter of the deaths from COVID-19, among a larger and older population. On March 12th, the U.K. gave up on testing for the coronavirus outside hospitals. By April 1st, of the National Health Service’s half a million front-line health-care workers, only two thousand had been tested. (More than a hundred have now died.) In late March, Jenny Harries, the deputy chief medical officer for England, told reporters that large-scale testing and tracing—as was being practiced successfully in South Korea and Singapore—was not suitable for the U.K. “There comes a point in a pandemic where that is not an appropriate intervention,” she said.

There has been a curious mixture of superiority and fatalism about Britain’s entire response to COVID-19. Officials have maintained that the country has “a perfectly adequate supply” of personal protective equipment, but this has never been the case. Last week, the Royal College of Physicians reported that about a third of doctors performing “aerosol-generating procedures” did not always have access to either visors or surgical gowns. On May 3rd, a survey of sixteen thousand doctors found that forty-eight per cent had bought or obtained pieces of P.P.E. outside official channels. Among the wider population, polls show that around eighty per cent of people believe that the lockdown should continue. This is sometimes taken as approval of the government’s handling of the crisis. But it is unclear how much support for the lockdown derives from fear. During March, the number of patients coming to emergency rooms across England fell by twenty-nine per cent. The number of people who were treated for suspected heart attacks fell by half.

As in other countries, the death toll from COVID-19 has been mapped onto existing inequalities. Residents of the most deprived communities in England and Wales have died from the disease at more than twice the rate of those who live in the wealthiest. Once age and geography have been taken into consideration, patients with Pakistani or black African heritage who have been treated for COVID-19 have died at roughly three times the rate of white patients. While the N.H.S. has not been overwhelmed by the outbreak, in April the country’s care-home system reported three thousand and ninety-six deaths in the space of seven days. After the 2008 financial crisis, public funding for adult social care in England fell by about fifteen per cent and has still not recovered. “We only knew about the first case because there was a sign on the door saying not to go in without a mask on,” an elder-care assistant told the Manchester Evening News last week, about an outbreak in her facility. When she started a recent shift, there were two masks for six carers. The other four wore towels on their faces. “We have to lie to families and tell them they were settled, comfortable and peaceful. We can’t tell the truth because it will break their hearts even more,” another nurse told the newspaper. “They have temperatures which create hallucinations, they are extremely agitated. They see people, animals, they try to grab out.”

Johnson’s government has done its utmost to frame the coronavirus like any other political challenge. Since the election of Tony Blair’s media-savvy New Labour administration, in the late nineties, there has been a sort of manual that British politicians have followed when faced with an insuperable problem. One technique is to invent objective-sounding “tests” for awkward decisions. In 1997, Blair’s chancellor, Gordon Brown, devised “five tests” for joining Europe’s single currency, which Britain somehow never quite passed. Another approach is to declare a bold, eye-catching target and make that the story. In 2010, David Cameron promised that he would reduce the number of migrants coming to the U.K. to fewer than a hundred thousand per year, something that he had neither the means nor the inclination to achieve. On April 16th, Johnson’s Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab, duly set out the five tests for easing the lockdown, at least one of which—avoiding a second wave of infections that swamps the N.H.S.—seems like a hopeful guess, at best. Last week, the British media feverishly covered the race to perform a hundred thousand coronavirus tests per day by the end of April, the distracting goal set by Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary. (The target was met by putting some fifty thousand tests in the mail on April 30th.) When outlets have investigated the government’s poor handling of the pandemic, they have been accused of bias and misreading the public mood. Last weekend, the Culture Secretary, Oliver Dowden, complained to the BBC about its reporting on the shortage of P.P.E.

Now for something different. You can get an Owl’s view of one of the most spectacular Iron age “hill forts” in East Devon, though in the daylight.

Hembury is the most northern of s series of Iron Age “forts” or “high status” sites straddling the Otter which run from: High Peak, Woodbury, Sidbury,  Belbury to Hembury. View the site and enjoy a virtual day out by clicking the link below to Honiton nub news 

VIDEO: Hembury Fort captured by drone

Hannah Corfield honiton.nub.news 

The UK’s chief scientific adviser has told MPs it would have been “beneficial” to have ramped up testing for coronavirus quicker.

Understatement – Owl?

Angharad Carrick www.cityam.com 

Sir Patrick Vallance told the Commons Health Select Committee that testing alone would not control the virus. The UK government moved away from contact tracing and testing in the community before lockdown started.

Instead, ministers focused their efforts on testing patients with symptoms of coronavirus in hospitals, care homes and prisons.

England’s deputy chief medical officer Jenny Harries said that “things would have been done differently” if testing capacity had not been limited.

Speaking to MPs, Vallance said: “I think that probably we, in the early phases, and I’ve said this before, I think if we’d managed to ramp testing capacity quicker it would have been beneficial.”

“And, you know, for all sorts of reasons that didn’t happen. “I think it’s clear you need lots of testing for this, but to echo what Jenny Harries has said, it’s completely wrong to think of testing as the answer.”

Health secretary Matt Hancock today announced a goal of 100,000 coronavirus tests a day by the end of April. The government initially succeeded but has struggled to hit the target in recent days.

It came as the government rolled out the NHS contact-tracing app for the first time today. Key workers on the Isle of Wight are the first to trial the new smartphone app from today, and will be made available to the rest of the island on Thursday.

The app is an attempt to slow the spread of Covid-19 by informing people if they have been in contact with someone who later reports they have virus symptoms.

The technology relies on a large uptake by the population, so the government will be encouraging as many smartphone users as possible to download the contact-tracing app.

Right now, offices around the UK are sitting empty while most of us work from home. But when lockdown lifts and workplaces are told they can start bringing employees back, they will return to a very strange environment.

Francesca Perry www.wired.co.uk

Government guidelines shared with businesses and unions this weekend gave a glimpse of what is yet to come. Hot desking will be curtailed and employees will be kept two meters away from each other with sticky tape on the floor; lifts will remain half empty and face-to-face meetings will be banned. Working hours will be staggered to reduce the amount of people in the office at any given time, and office canteens will be kept shut.

After coronavirus, the open-plan office format has suddenly become more risky than revolutionary; especially in light of previous studies which suggest the format results in a 62 per cent increase in sick leave. A recent survey from the Trades Union Congress (TUC) reported that 39 per cent of workers are concerned about not being able to socially distance from colleagues when back at work. Now that barriers have become synonymous with protection from infection, could we see a return of the cubicle-style office – or are there other ways to achieve workplace safety?

The open-plan layout was designed for collaboration, not isolation. Rising to prominence in the early 2000s and spurred on by young tech firms like Google, the open office signalled an end to the ‘cubicle farm’ era. Though some companies still use cubicle working, most abandoned it; according to a 2019 Savills survey, 73 per cent of UK workers use an open-plan office. And over the years, the open-plan office has become denser. According to the British Council of Offices (BCO), the average space per workstation in the UK has dropped from 11.8 square metres in 2008 to 9.6 square metres in 2018, meaning employee proximity has only increased.

Although the government has yet to confirm when a post-coronavirus return to the office might happen, companies and workplaces have started strategising. WeWork produced a slick video and announcement outlining “what the future of work looks like as we face the new realities of a post Covid-19 world”. The co-working provider’s measures include increased cleaning, PPE for members, touch-free soap dispensers, behavioural and wayfinding signage, professional distancing standards and limitation of capacity in its lounges, working nooks and meeting rooms – but no cubicles.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai has said employees will not return to offices until June at the earliest, and even then will do so in a staggered way. He also suggested the pandemic creates “an opportunity to reimagine how we work,” though Google has not announced details on what this entails.

Ken Cooper, Bloomberg LP’s global head of HR, says the majority of his company’s global workforce – including more than 95 per cent of UK-based employees – has been working from home since mid-March. “In London, we have introduced non-contact infrared temperature screening and are planning to adopt a gradual, phased approach to office return based on guidance from local authorities and our own risk assessment procedures.” Key considerations in Bloomberg’s operational strategy, Cooper explains, include re-configuring office movement, implementing social distancing across office floors and enhanced cleaning procedures.

Perkins + Will, a global architectural firm, recently announced its strategy for safer workplaces post-Covid, including a phased return to work, office capacity limits and distancing signage. “Instead of transitioning to a cubicle style of working, we will be using simple and cost-effective measures such as replanning our existing open-plan desks and re-organising circulation routes to allow for social distancing,” explains Linzi Cassels, principal and design director at its London studio. Some desks will be removed to reduce density and circulation routes will be redesigned to allow for one-way directional movement. “Adaptability will be key, with the ability for spaces to flex to accommodate future waves of pandemic,” says Cassels, “but this should be achievable through creative, yet uncomplicated, office design solutions.”

Global commercial real estate services firm Cushman and Wakefield has introduced the “6 Feet Office” concept to help its clients prepare for a return to the office that maintains physical distancing. Is this costly? “Clients are implementing different levels [of it],” says Nicola Gillen, head of total workplace EMEA. “Most are working with signage and graphics which is the cheapest approach with least intervention. Some are installing screens. Some are moving furniture out which involves labour costs and storage. Fewer are changing physical environments, which is the most costly.”

In fact, changes need not be physical at all. Using generative algorithms, global design firm Gensler has developed a digital tool for post-Covid workplace occupancy planning. Named ReRun, it uses the existing layout of a workplace to identify an optimal plan for assigning seating in order to accommodate safe physical distancing.

In April, the British Council of Offices released a briefing note on office design and operation after Covid-19. Its suggestions include automatic doors, reception screens, reconfigured meeting rooms, enhanced fresh air and touch-free devices. “Touchless devices do require investment,” explains Richard Kauntze, chief executive of BCO. “However, many of the immediate measures our paper suggests can be delivered for relatively little cost. Good hygiene practices are vitally important, however these can be enforced without significant cost – they’re more a question of effort and discipline.”

Office density is perhaps the biggest challenge for businesses returning to work. As fewer people are allowed to be in an office at any one time, companies will need to deploy rotas, explains Rosie Haslem, director at London-based design and research studio Spacelab, which has shaped workplaces for clients such as Virgin and Bauer Media. “In the shorter term for the return to work, we will need to ensure people can socially distance. This can be achieved through both management of people – such as flexible hours and rotas for how many people come into the office each day – and management of space, including reconfiguration or removal of desks and the closure of certain communal spaces. These things are low-cost ways of getting people back into work, quickly. Investment in technology to assist in the management of people flow and space occupancy, and to enable things to be ‘contactless’ may indeed follow – but arguably this is just an acceleration of pre-existing proptech trends.”

Regardless of what companies’ strategies are, we will not see a dramatic return to the cubicle, says corporate real estate consultant Anthony Slumbers, “at least not by anyone that wants a productive, effective workplace. The smart companies will use the Covid-19 tragedy to update and improve their workplaces. The worst companies will build cubicles.”

Some companies, however, have been buying in partitions and desk dividers – though none so far are announcing it. UK firm Panelscreens, which supplies office screens and partitions, has seen a 86 per cent month-on-month increase in revenue after the UK lockdown began. What’s more, its MOM average order value increased by 426 per cent. “The orders and enquiries we are getting are from large-scale businesses, who want quotes for multiple sites, where the volume of screens we’re being asked to quote on is over 5,000,” a representative explains. “These are not a cheap purchase on the volumes we are dealing with.”

The major change will be companies admitting that it is possible for their workforce to work remotely , says Matthew Blain, principle at design firm Hassell, which has designed offices for GSK and Sky. Preliminary findings from Spacelab show a large majority of workers (59 per cent) want to work from home at least two days per week in future. When asked their views on the most important future design considerations for the office, respondents prioritised the provision of technology that would enable “work anywhere” collaboration.

“Covid-19 has enforced a global working from home experiment which has accelerated long-term underlying trends in several areas,” says Gillen. “One of these is rethinking how and where we work and the idea that work has to be tied to an office. Many businesses are now fundamentally asking ‘Why do we go to the office?’ and therefore ‘What is the office for?’ It doesn’t make much sense for people or the planet for everyone to travel into city centres in order to work alone, two metres away from each other, at desks or in cubicles, every single day of the working week.

“The office should be a place we choose to come to for activities that are better done in person such as building relationships, learning, socialising, personal conversations and serendipitous interaction. That trend was already underway and we see it accelerating.”

Professor Neil Ferguson, an epidemiologist whose modelling convinced Boris Johnson to press ahead with a UK-wide lockdown, stood down from the scientific advisory group for emergencies (Sage) after allegations emerged in the Daily Telegraph on Tuesday evening.

Ashley Cowburn Political Correspondent www.independent.co.uk

A key scientist advising the government on coronavirus has resigned after reportedly flouting social distancing restrictions, admitting he made an “error of judgement”.

Professor Neil Ferguson, an epidemiologist whose modelling convinced Boris Johnson to press ahead with a UK-wide lockdown, stood down from the scientific advisory group for emergencies (Sage) after allegations emerged in the Daily Telegraph on Tuesday evening.

It was claimed professor Ferguson had allowed a woman to visit him at home in London at least two occasions during the lockdown.

In a statement, the professor of mathematical biology at Imperial College London, said: “I accept I made an error of judgement and took the wrong course of action.“

He continued: “I have therefore stepped back from my involvement in Sage. I acted in the belief that I was immune, having tested positive for coronavirus, and completely isolated myself for almost two weeks after developing symptoms.

”I deeply regret any undermining of the clear messages around the continued need for social distancing to control this devastating epidemic. The Government guidance is unequivocal, and is there to protect all of us.“

A government spokesman confirmed Prof Ferguson’s resignation when approached by The Independent.

His is not the first high-profile resignation of the pandemic, with Dr Catherine Calderwood having quit as Scotland’s chief medical officer after making two trips to her second home.

Sir Iain Duncan Smith, the former Tory leader, told The Telegraph: “Scientists like him have told us we should not be doing it, so surely in his case it is a case of we have been doing as he says and he has been doing as he wants to.

”He has peculiarly breached his own guidelines and for an intelligent man I find that very hard to believe. It risks undermining the government’s lockdown message.“

Prof Ferguson’s research with Imperial College London colleagues warned that 250,000 people could die in the UK without drastic action shortly before the prime minister imposed the restrictions.

“Now, the Guardian has seen a letter from the Department of Health to NHS trusts instructing them to stop buying any of their own PPE and ventilators.

From Monday, procurement of a list of 16 items must be handled centrally. Many of the items on the list, such as PPE, are in high demand during the pandemic, while others including CT scanners, mobile X-ray machines and ultrasounds are high-value machines that are used more widely in hospitals.

Centralising purchasing is likely to hand more responsibility to Deloitte…… “

Rupert Neate www.theguardian.com

The government is using the coronavirus pandemic to transfer key public health duties from the NHS and other state bodies to the private sector without proper scrutiny, critics have warned.

Doctors, campaign groups, academics and MPs raised the concerns about a “power grab” after it emerged on Monday that Serco was in pole position to win a deal to supply 15,000 call-handlers for the government’s tracking and tracing operation.

They said the health secretary, Matt Hancock, had “accelerated” the dismantling of state healthcare and that the duty to keep the public safe was being “outsourced” to the private sector.

In recent weeks, ministers have used special powers to bypass normal tendering and award a string of contracts to private companies and management consultants without open competition.

Deloitte, KPMG, Serco, Sodexo, Mitie, Boots and the US data mining group Palantir have secured taxpayer-funded commissions to manage Covid-19 drive-in testing centres, the purchasing of personal protective equipment (PPE) and the building of Nightingale hospitals.

Now, the Guardian has seen a letter from the Department of Health to NHS trusts instructing them to stop buying any of their own PPE and ventilators.

From Monday, procurement of a list of 16 items must be handled centrally. Many of the items on the list, such as PPE, are in high demand during the pandemic, while others including CT scanners, mobile X-ray machines and ultrasounds are high-value machines that are used more widely in hospitals.

Centralising purchasing is likely to hand more responsibility to Deloitte. As well as co-ordinating Covid-19 test centres and logistics at three new “lighthouse” laboratories created to process samples, the accounting and management consultancy giant secured a contract several weeks ago to advise central government on PPE purchases.

The firm said it was providing operational support for the procurement process of PPE from existing and new manufacturers, but declined to comment further.

“The government must not allow the current crisis to be used as cover to extend the creeping privatisation of the NHS,” said Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.

“The process for the management and purchase of medical supplies must be open, transparent and subject to full scrutiny. Deloitte’s track record of delivering PPE to the frontline since this virus began is not one of success and taking more decision-making authority from NHS managers and local authorities shifts power further from the frontline.”

Tony O’Sullivan, a retired paediatrician who co-chairs the campaign group Keep Our NHS Public, said this was a “dangerous time” for the NHS, and that the “error-ridden response” from government had exposed a decade of underfunding.

“Now, rather than learning from those errors they are compounding them by centralising decision-making but outsourcing huge responsibility for the safety of the population to private companies,” said O’Sullivan.

Allyson Pollock, the director of the Newcastle University Centre for Excellence in Regulatory Science, said tasks including testing, contact tracing and purchasing should be handled through regional authorities rather than central government.

“We are beginning to see the construction of parallel structures, having eviscerated the old ones,” she said. “I don’t think this is anything new, it just seems to be accelerated under Matt Hancock. These structures are completely divorced from local residents, local health services and local communities.”

Friday’s letter, signed by two officials from the Department of Health and Social Care, says that from Monday key equipment will be purchased through a procurement team comprising hundreds of staff from the government’s commercial function and other departments.

Global demand for equipment has been “unprecedented”, according to the letter, and it is therefore “vital that the UK government procures items nationally, rather than individual NHS organisations compete with each other for the same supplies”.

Trusts are told to flag any purchases already in progress so that these can be taken over by the central team and put into a central pot. “The national team can help you to conclude the deal, reimburse you, and manage the products through the national stocks.”

In a separate email, sent from NHS England on Saturday, trusts have been instructed to carry out a daily stock check from the beginning of this week. They must report down to the nearest 100 their stores of 13 types of protective equipment, including gloves, aprons, masks, gowns and eye protection. The information is being gathered by Palantir, a data processing company co-founded by the Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel.

The information will be used to distribute equipment to those trusts most in need, and in some cases move stock from one hospital to another.

A purchasing manager, speaking anonymously, said hospitals were concerned they might be forced to hand over stock and then run out before it could be replaced. “The lead time on some of these orders is 90 days,” said the manager. “Centrally, there is nobody who is able to deliver things more quickly. What this is going to do is force people to hide what they’ve got.”

“This coronavirus pandemic is being used to privatise yet more of our NHS against the wishes of the public, and without transparency and accountability,” said Cat Hobbs, director of campaign group We Own It. “This work should be done within the NHS. It shouldn’t be outsourced.”

“This is not the time for a power grab,” said the Labour MP Rosie Cooper, who sits on the health and social care committee, which is conducting an inquiry into the management of the outbreak. “Whatever contracts are awarded they have got to have a sunset clause. Three months, six months, it has got to be shown to be cost effective for it to continue after a certain date,” she said.

The Department of Health was contacted for comment.

Outsourcing

Testing centres

Contracts to operate drive-through coronavirus testing centres were awarded under special pandemic rules through a fast-track process without open competition. The contracts, the value of which has not been disclosed, were granted to accountants Deloitte, which is managing logistics at a national level. Deloitte then appointed outsourcing specialists Serco, Mitie, G4S and Sodexo, and the pharmacy chain Boots, to manage the centres.

Lab tests

A coalition of private companies and public bodies have come together to form Lighthouse Labs, to test samples in three centres in Milton Keynes, Cheshire and Glasgow. Deloitte is handling payroll, rotas and other logistics, working alongside pharmaceutical giants GlaxoSmithKline and AstraZeneca, as well as the army and private companies Amazon and Boots.

Nightingale hospitals

Dozens of private companies have won contracts to build, run and support the Nightingale hospitals. Consultancy firm KPMG coordinated the setting up of the first Nightingale at the ExCel centre in east London alongside military planners. Infrastructure consultants including Mott MacDonald and Archus also had roles in the project.

Outsourcing firm Interserve worked on the construction of the Birmingham Nightingale hospital at the NEC, and was awarded a contract to hire about 1,500 staff to run the Manchester Nightingale. G4S secured the contract to supply security guards for all the Nightingale hospitals.

Recruiting extra NHS and hospital staff

Capita, another outsourcing firm, was awarded a contract to help the NHS “vet and onboard thousands of returning nurses and doctors”.

PPE

The government appointed Deloitte to help it ramp up British production of protective equipment and source stocks from the UK and abroad. Some figures in the UK manufacturing industry have described the project as a “disaster” and accused Deloitte of pursuing factories in China – where prices have leapt and supply is tight due to huge global demand – rather than focusing on retooling UK factories to make more kit.

Clipper Logistics, a Yorkshire-based logistics and supply chain firm founded by the Conservative donor Steve Parkin, was awarded government contract to supply and deliver protective equipment to NHS trusts, care homes other healthcare workers.