Coronavirus: Planning for recovery in Peterborough and Cambridgeshire to begin with ‘society changed forever’

Chief executive of Peterborough City Council and Cambridgeshire County Council Gillian Beasley said attention is turning to how the area recovers from the devastation caused by Covid-19 at the same time as the crisis is being managed locally.

Both councils have in recent years had to slash their budgets due to huge government cutbacks in their funding, with the city council originally planning a huge overhaul in its operations this spring with all services ‘on the table’ as it seeks to make itself sustainable for the future.

And while the city council’s revamp has been put on hold for now, Mrs Beasley acknowledged a big challenge will remain once operations start returning to normal in the future months.

“What we will be required to do is put plans together to recover from this,” she told the Peterborough Telegraph.

“All councils will be required to do this. We will then examine the financial issues that it will challenge us with and we will be having a dialogue with government about that.

“We have money from the Government to do what we need to do (for now).”

Asked how the coronavirus outbreak will affect the councils’ operations in years to come, she replied: “Society will have changed - it won’t be the same place. Even now we’re thinking about what those challenges might be, what those opportunities might be.

“We’ve galvanised civic society, volunteering and people helping. How can we keep those things going into the recovery period and maintain all of that goodwill and support?

“It raises a lot of difficult questions but also a lot of potential to change the way we do things forever.

“It’s made us appreciate how to do virtual meetings well. It will challenge us to think how we can do things better.

“This is unchartered territory, but there are good minds and good people across the board who will be turning their minds to ‘how do we come out of this well?’”