How are we all feeling after our first week of “Freedom”?

As I sit down to write this, I am picturing you out and about – clambering aboard crowded trains, returning to your offices, catching up with friends and colleagues and frequenting your favourite bars and restaurants. Am I wrong? Have you been more cautious about stepping out and resuming your “usual” busy lives?

I appreciate not everyone is lucky enough to work in a profession where home working is a possibility, but I’m curious to hear how the colleagues who would usually be office-dwellers are feeling post “Freedom Day”. Did you rush back into towns and cities last week to take advantage of the office air con? Did you choose to return weeks ago? Or, are you still occupying a desk at home and taking a more cautious approach to venturing out?

As a communications professional who is old enough to remember typewriters on desks, it has been interesting to see just how many people – of all ages and technical abilities – have been able to meet, debate, work, socialise and even obtain a healthy dose of culture online. Many of us are able to access almost everything we need through our various online devices – family, friends, groceries, theatre, music, wildlife…

I participated in my first video conference in the 1990s, when the firm I was working for at that time invested in enormous video conferencing units. The objective was to reduce the time, effort and environmental impact of employees travelling between offices. Early virtual meetings were stilted and disjoined, people talked over one another and had whispered conversations with colleagues in the same room. Despite the company’s best intentions, the equipment gradually gathered dust in office boardrooms as we resolutely jumped in our cars and headed off to various offices to meet face-to-face.

Considering our awkwardness and resistance to those early meetings, it’s remarkable how quickly we all embraced the technology last year when we didn’t have a choice. Now that we’re accustomed to meeting through Teams, FaceTiming the family, Zooming with friends and hanging out in council meetings, will we be quite so keen to step away from the screen?

This is a question my colleague Henry Hodgson asked in his article on 11^th February 2021. Since then, the High Court ruled (on 28 April 2021) that virtual council meetings could not lawfully take place after 6 May 2021 and primary legislation would be required to restore the powers to hold virtual meetings in the future.

This didn’t deter all councils from hosting virtual meetings beyond 6 May and, whilst we can expect most council meetings to take place in person, the virtual option is also proving useful and acceptable for less formal meetings.

We’ve participated in hundreds of virtual meetings with councillors, officers, residents, and community groups over the last 12 months and we will continue to do so, but we’re also meeting people face-to-face. Our approach to consultation is likely to change a little as people regain their confidence, but we’ve always offered a variety of engagement methods, so nothing has changed in that sense.

Not everyone wants to turn out and meet us in a village hall, and I think it’s wonderful that we can offer people the opportunity to review information online at their own pace. In many cases, virtual meetings have actually made it easier for attendees to understand what’s proposed and speak to the right experts about the issues that interest them most.

As someone who has been labelled “clinically extremely vulnerable” and compelled to hide away more than most, I’m looking forward to getting back out there and communicating in the traditional way. However, if you need to reach me quickly, you can still find me behind a webcam!