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How critical is the return of passengers and busy trains for railway jobs?

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JonathanH

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it will also avoid many enhancements ie like Croydon remodelling
Of course, axing projects like Croydon remodelling, could itself potentially lead to job cuts within Network Rail and the supporting businesses that would have done the work. The case for Croydon remodelling would appear to be very weak.

The question is how to best maintain the skills of the staff who would have been involved on a project like this by redeployment while not incurring the massive capital cost of the works.
 
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Nicholas Lewis

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Of course, axing projects like Croydon remodelling, could itself potentially lead to job cuts within Network Rail and the supporting businesses that would have done the work. The case for Croydon remodelling would appear to be very weak.

The question is how to best maintain the skills of the staff who would have been involved on a project like this by redeployment while not incurring the massive capital cost of the works.
projects like that tend to be stuffed full of consultants on mega bucks but at least can be switched off quickly. The front line staff are already too thin and with the move away from Red Zone working they will need more staff to work at night to keep on top of maintenance so I don't see they will be affected.
 

Gathursty

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Mentioned earlier was car parking charges at Sheffield.
Instead, let's focus on car parking charges at so called Parkway stations. (Aylebury Vale, East Midlands, Warwick)
The purpose of these is to entice people who would otherwise drive into the town/city and reduce urban air pollution. When you see car park charges going over £10 at these places, I can think of words far removed from enticing.

I understand there is a cost to everything but you shouldn't be stung for doing the right thing and leaving the car outside of the city centre.

I think a £5 cap is reasonable for parking no matter how lauded, secure, clean etc.. the car park is. It's still a car park.
 

yorksrob

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I've only lived in places with a 2tph service or more, although at times those trains have been a 5/55 minute split and I didn't find an effective service of 1tph too difficult to plan around. However, I didn't have to worry about connections, and I know 1tph can mean some very long waits when changing (or disrupted).

I agree. Equally, passengers must not be put off by a massive fare jump, so somewhere costs must be reduced. It's a tricky balancing act.

Connections are a very important point, particularly for services that are hourly or less.

The length of the travelling day is another key quality factor - something that has been unfortunately brought into focus by the COVID situation.

Of course, axing projects like Croydon remodelling, could itself potentially lead to job cuts within Network Rail and the supporting businesses that would have done the work. The case for Croydon remodelling would appear to be very weak.

The question is how to best maintain the skills of the staff who would have been involved on a project like this by redeployment while not incurring the massive capital cost of the works.

Re-deploy to the de-carbonisation work, i.e. the rolling electrification programme.
 

squizzler

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Of course, axing projects like Croydon remodelling, could itself potentially lead to job cuts within Network Rail and the supporting businesses that would have done the work. The case for Croydon remodelling would appear to be very weak.
I understood this to be part of a vision for south London overground: ie more essential as the traffic becomes point to point rather than merely commuting to and from the City.
 

Horizon22

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As mentioned in another thread, Hull Trains are reducing their workforce by 26% (although not clear what area of the business these roles are in). That give us some insight into the levels of staffing decline previously franchised TOCs may see in the future, although there are of course many varied types of operations.
 

irish_rail

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As mentioned in another thread, Hull Trains are reducing their workforce by 26% (although not clear what area of the business these roles are in). That give us some insight into the levels of staffing decline previously franchised TOCs may see in the future, although there are of course many varied types of operations.
And yet they are currently advertising for qualified drivers!?
 

david1212

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I think to an extent I agree. As a passenger I think a half hourly service is perfectly easy to plan around. Hourly less so, but also doable if there isn't the usage to support more. The important thing is to not put the passengers off by destroying the service.
Connections are a very important point, particularly for services that are hourly or less.

The length of the travelling day is another key quality factor - something that has been unfortunately brought into focus by the COVID situation.

Where back to 2019 the service was half-hourly or more frequent I too think cutting back to less than half-hourly would be counterproductive.

Mentioned earlier was car parking charges at Sheffield.
Instead, let's focus on car parking charges at so called Parkway stations. (Aylebury Vale, East Midlands, Warwick)
The purpose of these is to entice people who would otherwise drive into the town/city and reduce urban air pollution. When you see car park charges going over £10 at these places, I can think of words far removed from enticing.

I understand there is a cost to everything but you shouldn't be stung for doing the right thing and leaving the car outside of the city centre.

I think a £5 cap is reasonable for parking no matter how lauded, secure, clean etc.. the car park is. It's still a car park.

Indeed. Parkway stations should be about enticing people to use the train for most of the journey. For four people each with a £50+ ticket adding £2.50 for parking may not be an influence but for a single person with a £25 ticket adding £10 for parking may well tip their choice to staying in the car.
I don't the costs but the charge should just cover them, not make a profit. If there is a cap which required a subsidy it would be covered by the increased ticket sales.
 

AgentGemini

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I'm not so sure commuters and business will be as great a loss as feared. Hear me out...

During covid etc, WFH was installed and "proven". So then you have had the Reddit types all singing the praises of WFH and how they'll demand WFH be available when they move to their next bod job and so on.

However....

Counter 1) - it is emerging that people are getting tired of WFH. They cannot mentally switch off. Work life and personal life, the boundaries are blurring. They want those boundaries back.
Counter 2) - not everyone is privileged enough to be able to work in a separate room, a study or god forbid, a 'personal office'. I have a good friend who works as customer support via text chat / IM for Vodafone. She works in her bedroom as she lives in a let, and resents it. Interns, grads, and lower class office workers (ie not execs) aren't going to have these nice large houses with extra rooms.
Counter 3) - (and this one makes me smile when the redditor types suddenly mentally go quiet) ---- if your digital/knowledge economy/online job can be done remotely - London core, but you're based and sat in Milton Keynes - what's to prevent that remote working from stretching to say, India? Afterall, 3Mobile at one point had all their customer services ops based in India, but in 2015 moved their complaints back to Scotland because 3 were loosing customers due to said complaints and issues - but the basic customer service assistants were I believe still foreign. So, do these eager WFH want to be jobbed out?

I think we'll reach a compromise where a load will go back full time, some will do mix like 3-4 days in and 1-2 days out, or alternate things and a small elite few WFH majorly.
 

david1212

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I'm not so sure commuters and business will be as great a loss as feared. Hear me out...

During covid etc, WFH was installed and "proven". So then you have had the Reddit types all singing the praises of WFH and how they'll demand WFH be available when they move to their next bod job and so on.

However....

Counter 1) - it is emerging that people are getting tired of WFH. They cannot mentally switch off. Work life and personal life, the boundaries are blurring. They want those boundaries back.
Counter 2) - not everyone is privileged enough to be able to work in a separate room, a study or god forbid, a 'personal office'. I have a good friend who works as customer support via text chat / IM for Vodafone. She works in her bedroom as she lives in a let, and resents it. Interns, grads, and lower class office workers (ie not execs) aren't going to have these nice large houses with extra rooms.
Counter 3) - (and this one makes me smile when the redditor types suddenly mentally go quiet) ---- if your digital/knowledge economy/online job can be done remotely - London core, but you're based and sat in Milton Keynes - what's to prevent that remote working from stretching to say, India? Afterall, 3Mobile at one point had all their customer services ops based in India, but in 2015 moved their complaints back to Scotland because 3 were loosing customers due to said complaints and issues - but the basic customer service assistants were I believe still foreign. So, do these eager WFH want to be jobbed out?

I think we'll reach a compromise where a load will go back full time, some will do mix like 3-4 days in and 1-2 days out, or alternate things and a small elite few WFH majorly.

This is where I think for your Counter 1) and Counter 2) some WFH will be replaced by working very locally rather than daily longer distance commuting to where they worked back in 2019. Depending on the business and the number of staff within an area be they employees or contract this could either be a company specific building, one office from a suite or just desks rented by the day.
 

ficedula

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I think we'll reach a compromise where a load will go back full time, some will do mix like 3-4 days in and 1-2 days out, or alternate things and a small elite few WFH majorly.

Realistically we might not know that until everything does shake down; however, just as one data point, my employer (not a very large one, but still) has told us that post-covid, we're all allowed to WFH part time, and 2 days per week in the office is acceptable. (This isn't just idle talk - new contracts have been issued, so they aren't going to walk that back easily!). Talking to my colleagues, not all of them are planning to WFH to the maximum allowed - which backs up your points 1/2 partly - but of those of us who have a decent length commute, we are all planning to do so. It's the people who live within walking (or short cycling) distance of the office who'll do more days in there!

(This makes a lot of sense - if "going into the office" means "less than a mile's walk", then sure, it's not much imposition. If it involves more time and cost, well, of course you're keener to avoid the commute and do WFH!)

The end result is that, of the people in my office who would otherwise travel by public transport, we're all going to continue part-time WFH to the extent we're allowed to. (It's also the natural response to your point 3 - my employer doesn't need us on site all the time, but will need us on site - or at a customer site! - occasionally.)

This sounds a lot like what Nationwide (who are a large employer!) are doing - they're not mandating "everybody WFH 100% of the time", but they're allowing a mix, and a lot of people want to do so at least part of the time.

Will it cut commuting by 90%? No, not that much; some firms just won't or can't allow WFH, even among firms that do, some people won't want to WFH, as you indicate. But even a 20% drop in commuting is a large enough shift to make a very noticeable difference - most businesses couldn't ignore that many customers disappearing overnight!

(Something that I'm sure is being considered: when I started my current job, I bought a season ticket. Once you have a season ticket, there's a strong incentive to use it - you've already paid for it! So you use it for leisure travel (possibly buying ticket(s) for your kids), on a work day even if the weather's foul and you don't fancy the walk to the station, well, I'd rather not drive, I've already basically paid for the train ... Now I won't be buying a season ticket, those incentives are gone - I'm not "tied in" to taking the train, and I can skip it freely any day or week without feeling I've lost out. How big an effect is that? I don't know; maybe not big at all! But I expect there is somebody whose job it is to figure out how much additional revenue you might lose when somebody stops travelling by season ticket in favour of individual day tickets.)
 

yorksrob

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It's all within the industry's power to rebuild those sunk cost incentives back into rail travel, namely with carnet tickets and railcards.

It also needs to remove barriers - cheap day tickets need to be available on more routes for example and fewer obscure route restrictions.

Will the treasury allow such things to happen though.
 

Ianno87

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I understood this to be part of a vision for south London overground: ie more essential as the traffic becomes point to point rather than merely commuting to and from the City.

Croydon I suspect is a bit more "bigger picture" than pure peak capacity. And probably a bit of a "once in a generation" sort of opportunity, for which cancellation may later be regretted, especially if peak demand returns to the railway in future decades. i.e. you'd have to be confident in your crystal ball to can it now.
 

Bald Rick

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I think we'll reach a compromise where a load will go back full time, some will do mix like 3-4 days in and 1-2 days out, or alternate things and a small elite few WFH majorly.

That’s what will happen - ie a mix. There will also be not a few people out of work altogether. All told it will still see commuting down - particularly into London, and particularly for longer distances. Perhaps 20-30% (my guess).
 

40129

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So what if the average big city office worker is at the office 3 days per week instead of 5? Unless flexible season tickets are introduced, they're likely to be unable to justify buying an annual season ticket so will be paying for a standard day return three times a week. Given that an annual season ticket is sold at a hefty discount compared to a years worth of day returns (ISTR they cost the same as 10.5 months of 5x day returns per week), how much revenue would the railway lose?

Furthermore, if this average worker previously used their season ticket for occasional weekend leisure trips, would they continue to make such trips?

IIRC one of the issues LT faced when the Travelcard scheme was introduced in the late-1980s was that a significant number of passengers took advantage of the scheme to make leisure trips around London effectively for free. This resulted in subway ridership increasing significantly faster than revenue. What I'm therefore wondering is could the mainline railway end up facing the reverse of this whereby ridership falls at a slower rate than revenue?
 

Bald Rick

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Unless flexible season tickets are introduced, they're likely to be unable to justify buying an annual season ticket so will be paying for a standard day return three times a week. Given that an annual season ticket is sold at a hefty discount compared to a years worth of day returns (ISTR they cost the same as 10.5 months of 5x day returns per week), how much revenue would the railway lose?

Given that a majority of season tickets (as in those that were actually held by passengers) are better value than buying daily tickets for 3 days a weeks of travel, it’s quite possible that people will still buy season tickets for travelling 3/4 days a week. Indeed there is some evidence that this had been happening on an increasing basis for some time, and that passenger numbers on some flows had been overestimated as a result.


What I'm therefore wondering is could the mainline railway end up facing the reverse of this whereby ridership falls at a slower rate than revenue?

That’s a certainty, and is exactly what has happened. Revenue is down much more than passenger numbers, and has been for 13 months.
 

Horizon22

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And yet they are currently advertising for qualified drivers!?

Again, its not clear what areas of the business this is in. Perhaps they need more drivers and fewer back-office roles or other frontline roles have been removed.
 

Greybeard33

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Given that a majority of season tickets (as in those that were actually held by passengers) are better value than buying daily tickets for 3 days a weeks of travel, it’s quite possible that people will still buy season tickets for travelling 3/4 days a week. Indeed there is some evidence that this had been happening on an increasing basis for some time, and that passenger numbers on some flows had been overestimated as a result.
But the equation is much more finely balanced when you are only working 3 days a week. With an annual season, there are holiday weeks when you do not use it all, and other part-holiday weeks when you only work one or two days. With a monthly season, many months will include days or weeks off, which can tip the balance to make a combination of weeklies and day tickets cheaper. A weekly season is hardly any cheaper for a 3 daily tickets, so it may be preferable to have the flexibility of paying daily.

If you make business trips from time to time, or have days off sick/ for a domestic crisis/ for jury service, you could be paying for more "wasted" days with a season.
 

Bald Rick

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But the equation is much more finely balanced when you are only working 3 days a week. With an annual season, there are holiday weeks when you do not use it all, and other part-holiday weeks when you only work one or two days. With a monthly season, many months will include days or weeks off, which can tip the balance to make a combination of weeklies and day tickets cheaper. A weekly season is hardly any cheaper for a 3 daily tickets, so it may be preferable to have the flexibility of paying daily.

If you make business trips from time to time, or have days off sick/ for a domestic crisis/ for jury service, you could be paying for more "wasted" days with a season.

It very much depends on the journey. Some season tickets cost the same as 1.5 any time returns...
 

SuperNova

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And yet they are currently advertising for qualified drivers!?
Plenty of staff in Hull Trains started looking for other jobs at other operators in 2020, in case they didn't return.
So what if the average big city office worker is at the office 3 days per week instead of 5? Unless flexible season tickets are introduced, they're likely to be unable to justify buying an annual season ticket so will be paying for a standard day return three times a week. Given that an annual season ticket is sold at a hefty discount compared to a years worth of day returns (ISTR they cost the same as 10.5 months of 5x day returns per week), how much revenue would the railway lose?

Furthermore, if this average worker previously used their season ticket for occasional weekend leisure trips, would they continue to make such trips?
I fear you're right here on two parts. A close friend has moved house and jobs - will be in the office at least 2/3 days a week. If there's no flexi-tickets he'll drive.

My worry is the DfT and treasury will obsess over the lost revenue from annuals rather than building a new system for the 21st century.
 

david1212

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So what if the average big city office worker is at the office 3 days per week instead of 5? Unless flexible season tickets are introduced, they're likely to be unable to justify buying an annual season ticket so will be paying for a standard day return three times a week. Given that an annual season ticket is sold at a hefty discount compared to a years worth of day returns (ISTR they cost the same as 10.5 months of 5x day returns per week), how much revenue would the railway lose?

Furthermore, if this average worker previously used their season ticket for occasional weekend leisure trips, would they continue to make such trips?

IIRC one of the issues LT faced when the Travelcard scheme was introduced in the late-1980s was that a significant number of passengers took advantage of the scheme to make leisure trips around London effectively for free. This resulted in subway ridership increasing significantly faster than revenue. What I'm therefore wondering is could the mainline railway end up facing the reverse of this whereby ridership falls at a slower rate than revenue?

Some longer distance seasons cost much less
e.g. Winchester - Waterloo
Anytime day return £76.80
Weekly season £139.50 - less than two returns
Monthly season £535 - slightly less than seven returns
Annual season £5580 - to the nearest journey seventy-three returns

If typically actually used 100 days a year the annual gives just over 25% discount, which is far more reasonable than £24.80 or around 67% if used for 225 days ( 5 days a week for 45 out of 52 weeks ) and also 40% less than the £41.90 off-peak return.
What over business discounts its product / service by so much at the time of peak demand ?
 

Kite159

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So what if the average big city office worker is at the office 3 days per week instead of 5? Unless flexible season tickets are introduced, they're likely to be unable to justify buying an annual season ticket so will be paying for a standard day return three times a week. Given that an annual season ticket is sold at a hefty discount compared to a years worth of day returns (ISTR they cost the same as 10.5 months of 5x day returns per week), how much revenue would the railway lose?

Furthermore, if this average worker previously used their season ticket for occasional weekend leisure trips, would they continue to make such trips?

IIRC one of the issues LT faced when the Travelcard scheme was introduced in the late-1980s was that a significant number of passengers took advantage of the scheme to make leisure trips around London effectively for free. This resulted in subway ridership increasing significantly faster than revenue. What I'm therefore wondering is could the mainline railway end up facing the reverse of this whereby ridership falls at a slower rate than revenue?

And that big city worker might shift the hours they work from a 9-5 to say 11-7 to allow use of off-peak tickets rather than paying for an anytime ticket on the days they go into the office.
 

Clayton

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The thing is, though, if you're at the start of your career you no longer have to live in a "crappy flat" and work "on an ironing board", because you no longer need to live in London (which is where this mostly goes on due to the outrageous property prices). You can get the gains mentioned by going in 2 days a week, and that can allow for a longer commute, e.g. from the Midlands where housing is cheaper. Or perhaps it'd be viable to stay with your parents for a few years and save for a deposit on your own place. Benefits all round there.

But either way, where people work is not a matter for the Government, and their nose needs to be kept firmly out of it. It is a matter between employer, employee and (where applicable) Union. There is the H&S aspect, but (pre COVID) just making a declaration has handled that in a way people are generally happy with; perhaps a right to employer funded "proper" desk/chair might be worth considering, that said. The Government has no business encouraging travel, when travel is to be discouraged because of environmental issues. If that causes Pret issues, they might want to consider setting up cafes in residential areas instead for homeworkers to pop out for lunch (I often did this pre-COVID). If it causes the railway issues, that needs to restructure around the actual travel demands that are presented to it, not set about creating them.

I could not be more opposed to the idea of a policy of legally-enforced Luddism.
I think that if you are at the start of your career you are more likely to be concerned about meeting people and learning from colleagues. You probably won’t want to live with your parents or commute from the Midlands. But that’s for another discussion
 

Deafdoggie

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I'm not so sure commuters and business will be as great a loss as feared. Hear me out...

During covid etc, WFH was installed and "proven". So then you have had the Reddit types all singing the praises of WFH and how they'll demand WFH be available when they move to their next bod job and so on.

However....

Counter 1) - it is emerging that people are getting tired of WFH. They cannot mentally switch off. Work life and personal life, the boundaries are blurring. They want those boundaries back.
Counter 2) - not everyone is privileged enough to be able to work in a separate room, a study or god forbid, a 'personal office'. I have a good friend who works as customer support via text chat / IM for Vodafone. She works in her bedroom as she lives in a let, and resents it. Interns, grads, and lower class office workers (ie not execs) aren't going to have these nice large houses with extra rooms.
Counter 3) - (and this one makes me smile when the redditor types suddenly mentally go quiet) ---- if your digital/knowledge economy/online job can be done remotely - London core, but you're based and sat in Milton Keynes - what's to prevent that remote working from stretching to say, India? Afterall, 3Mobile at one point had all their customer services ops based in India, but in 2015 moved their complaints back to Scotland because 3 were loosing customers due to said complaints and issues - but the basic customer service assistants were I believe still foreign. So, do these eager WFH want to be jobbed out?

I think we'll reach a compromise where a load will go back full time, some will do mix like 3-4 days in and 1-2 days out, or alternate things and a small elite few WFH majorly.
Point 2, a lot of people have found they don't need to live near the office any more. They can live anywhere and WFH, so can choose somewhere cheaper to live.
I doubt point 3 will come to pass. Companies that moved call centres abroad have largely come back to the UK, as "cultural differences" found it was costing them business. They've settled back in the UK.
 

SuperNova

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Point 2, a lot of people have found they don't need to live near the office any more. They can live anywhere and WFH, so can choose somewhere cheaper to live.
I doubt point 3 will come to pass. Companies that moved call centres abroad have largely come back to the UK, as "cultural differences" found it was costing them business. They've settled back in the UK.
Point 2 means potentially longer less frequent commutes, which rail can supplement.

Government policy is also key here. I cannot see this or any government allowing permanent WFH without taxation accordingly - the economic hit to GDP per year is estimated to be at least £15bn.
 

Bletchleyite

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Point 2 means potentially longer less frequent commutes, which rail can supplement.

Government policy is also key here. I cannot see this or any government allowing permanent WFH without taxation accordingly - the economic hit to GDP per year is estimated to be at least £15bn.

I don't get why it should be. Businesses that serve the lunchtime market at offices can serve it in local housing areas instead, the local butcher, baker etc can come back etc. It's full of benefits to the economy even if not GDP (which I don't care a jot about, TBH, I care about how the economy provides for people).

I'm sorry, but I strongly object to the idea that my working pattern should be anyone's decision other than between me and my employer. I am not making employment decisions for the benefit of Pret a Manger shareholders.
 

SuperNova

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I don't get why it should be. Businesses that serve the lunchtime market at offices can serve it in local housing areas instead, the local butcher, baker etc can come back etc. It's full of benefits to the economy even if not GDP (which I don't care a jot about, TBH, I care about how the economy provides for people).

I'm sorry, but I strongly object to the idea that my working pattern should be anyone's decision other than between me and my employer. I am not making employment decisions for the benefit of Pret a Manger shareholders.
You might not care about GDP, but it has a massive impact on this country on policy, investment and taxation.

The idea that those WFH suddenly will spend it locally is also wishful thinking. My housemate has WFH for a year and only twice gone out for lunch in the small town where we live because the variety is poor and a few butty shops and cafes (very overpriced locally) don't offer the eclectic mix a city centre does.

Finally, if WFH leads to further collapse of town and city centres, then government will make decisions that will impact your employment decisions - and not for Pret a Manger shareholders, but for jobs and unemployment reasons.
 

XAM2175

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The idea that those WFH suddenly will spend it locally is also wishful thinking. My housemate has WFH for a year and only twice gone out for lunch in the small town where we live because the variety is poor and a few butty shops and cafes (very overpriced locally) don't offer the eclectic mix a city centre does.
1) As your anecdata itself suggests, that's highly dependent on location - in my case the options close to my house are far more numerous, and generally better, than the ones near my former office - and 2) you're not allowing for the fact that many of the options (of all types and qualities) have been closed or otherwise limited for much of the past year. You can't directly draw conclusions on consumer behaviour when there are no restrictions on trading based on how they act when there are restrictions in place.
 

Ianno87

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1) As your anecdata itself suggests, that's highly dependent on location - in my case the options close to my house are far more numerous, and generally better, than the ones near my former office - and 2) you're not allowing for the fact that many of the options (of all types and qualities) have been closed or otherwise limited for much of the past year. You can't directly draw conclusions on consumer behaviour when there are no restrictions on trading based on how they act when there are restrictions in place.

Plus I've visited offices on business parks on the like that have nothing or very little in the vicinty for lunch, so most folks bring their own lunch already.
 

bramling

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You might not care about GDP, but it has a massive impact on this country on policy, investment and taxation.

The idea that those WFH suddenly will spend it locally is also wishful thinking. My housemate has WFH for a year and only twice gone out for lunch in the small town where we live because the variety is poor and a few butty shops and cafes (very overpriced locally) don't offer the eclectic mix a city centre does.

Finally, if WFH leads to further collapse of town and city centres, then government will make decisions that will impact your employment decisions - and not for Pret a Manger shareholders, but for jobs and unemployment reasons.

I suspect there is going to be quite a bit of lobbying from interest groups associated with the likes of city centre hospitality.

I’d say there’s a pretty good chance we’ll see some gentle “back to the office” encouragement before the year is out.

At the moment there’s a lot of “I don’t want to return to my office”, which doesn’t mean the same thing as “I won’t be returning to my office”, especially when in a lot of cases it goes hand in hand with “We’re sorry, but due to our staff working from home, we’re unable to fully ...”
 
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