The Mayors of Greater Manchester and Liverpool Andy Burnham have begun to set out their ideas on how the region.
Recovery will not be a bounceback but a slow process of recovery that will also give us the opportunity to change things for the better.
Unlike the response phase, the recovery needs to be driven locally and it needs to be built by the bottom up.”There can’t be any return to business as usual, we need to be build back better, says Andy Burnham
The Mayor has criticised in the past that there is no seat at the table for the English regions on COBRA and he believes that the regions need a seat on the table of any future planning
That future planning should be based upon a national recovery council could build the consensus that is needed. building on the national spirit in the country that hasn’t been seen in many years, building collaboration across all sectors.
The Mayor refuted any region region restricting of the lockdown. For recovery each region will need its own plan but they should be coordinated nationally.
Local Government and councils will be critical in making recovery happening but with a massive fall off in income and a massive increase in costs.”the quicker the Government gets to grips with this the better.”
On transport, public transport is losing millions and Metrolink could be mothballed without comparable funding that has been given to rail and bus operators
The clever approach to providing a stimulus would be to do those things while capturing the benefits of the lockdown. Burnham uses the example of clean air which we are experiencing by moving quickly towards the region’s clean air plans.
The prioritising of exercise during this lockdown and the empty roads should see us quickly move towards prioritising pedestrians and cycling to keep the impetus of exercise.
Recognising that there will be unemployment, we need to move towards new industries citing the retrofitting of properties across the region.”This could lead to the creation of thousand of jobs across our towns and cities.
When it comes to fairness across the workplace, The Mayor said that we need to reflect on the fact that people have been overvalued at the top and undervalued at the bottom.
It wasn’t correct that the people that we are relying on at the moment often are not paid enough to live on
