Cllr Asima Shaikh: ‘Our economy in Islington will adjust. There’s no two ways about it – things aren’t going to go back to the way they were’

ISLINGTON’S regeneration chief has warned that some small businesses in the south of the borough will be lost due to a lack of workers returning to their offices after the Covid lockdowns.

In a frank assessment of the state of play in areas where shops and services relied on commuters, Labour cabinet councillor Asima Shaikh said she didn’t have an answer as to how they could be protected.

“In the same way that we can’t magic up jobs, we can’t magic up customers for businesses that are located in certain places. It is going to be a challenge,” she told a council meeting on  Tuesday.

“The timeframe is not going to be timely enough for those businesses, so I think we are going to see a lot of businesses go out of business unfortunately.”

She said all local authorities which covered central London had concerns.

“However you answer the question, it’s not comfortable. The journey ahead is going to be really tough for those businesses.”

She had been asked by  Green councillor Caroline Russell whether Islington had any strategies to help smaller businesses that had seen a dramatic drop in trade, even as some of the coronavirus rules have softened in recent weeks.

Cllr Russell said: “Many jobs in Islington, particularly in the south of the borough, were dependent on the daily flow of commuters that are probably not going to be returning to work in offices full time.

“That means all those cafes, barbers and hairdressers – places that were dependant on those people who travel into and out of London.”

She added: “We have King’s Cross station, Farringdon – all those points of arrival where people were spending money and contributing to an economy of small businesses in Islington. But it doesn’t feel like this is going to be over or we are going to be back to where we were last March any time soon.”

Many larger, office-based companies in London have already told staff that they will be reducing office space and saving money on property costs, after 15 months of operating with remote working and videocalls.

On social media, workers have joked that they are no longer shelling out for expensive lunches each day, and at one stage there were angry online exchanges about whether low-paid office workers should be pressured to go back to their workplaces to assist chains like Pret.

But councillors in Islington are acutely aware that it is not just big businesses and nationwide chains that need workers to return to the central areas and that small, sometimes family-run businesses are also at risk.

Cllr Shaikh said: “There are opportunities in other parts of the borough, there’s going to be movement and there may be more opportunities in more localised town centres where people are blending their work – going into the office two days a week and going out more locally. We don’t really know what people’s patterns are going to be until we come a bit further out of the pandemic.

“But our economy in Islington will adjust. There’s no two ways about it – things aren’t going to go back to the way they were.”

Cllr Shaikh said the council would be looking to protect “town centres” and that some businesses had already moved to cheaper premises.

But she warned that a government relaxation of planning laws could mean commercial units were quickly turned into housing if developers were excused from needing consent.

Of the south of the borough, she added: “I don’t know if the land market will adjust to the lack of demand, so rents go down.”