Opinion: ‘Important we plan for resilience’

By the time this article is published, we will have completed the first weeks of a nationwide lockdown. I hope that people are staying as safe and well as possible.

If there is one desire that unites people across the political spectrum, it’s a yearning to return to normal life. The necessities of lockdown limit social contact; we are social beings. I am grateful for modern technology, in particular video conferencing software, otherwise this time would be even more difficult.

If 2020 has taught us anything, it has shown how fragile our systems are. In December 2019, it was possible to believe that we were going to have a normal year. Offices and shops were open. Businesses had some uncertainties, such as what kind of trade deal would be in place after Brexit; also, there was a vague sense that climate change might present a problem or two.

That said, there was a sense of what was going to happen based upon the evidence of the present.

A virus which emerged in a food market in Wuhan, China changed everything. All our assumptions have been upended. If you wanted to open a restaurant this year, it suddenly became the worst possible time. We have been running to catch up ever since.

A lot of planning occurs within the framework of hope rather than realism. Our local council has been particularly guilty of this: witness their overly optimistic predictions for what the Fletton Quays project would do for the city. We should learn the lessons from this year, specifically, that we need to plan for resilience.

There are some which might want to suggest that 2020 is a one-off. After all, the last pandemic of this type occurred in 1918. It may be that there will be a gap in time when there is no pandemic; but we should be open to the possibility that one may occur. Will we respond in much the same way as we have to this one, with a patchwork of hasty initiatives and sticking plasters?

There are other potential issues; I previously mentioned climate change. What happens when its effect hits? Just because some may not want to believe in it, does not necessarily mean it will not occur. If there is flooding in parts of our city, what is the planning for that? What if the summer heat becomes unbearable for residents in our care homes?

Obviously, not all difficulties can be anticipated. However, in my experience the best businesses are those that plan for resilience. We should have a set of plans in place for scenarios that can be foreseen at the moment: at the very worst, we will have a plan that will gather dust on a shelf.

Hopefully, that’s precisely what will happen. But if we are affected by another disaster on the scale of the coronavirus pandemic, then perhaps we will have a guide as to what we should and are prepared. Such an exercise need not be costly except in time and expense of imagination. We in the Labour Group pledge to do this; the council should have done this already.