Keir Starmer’s WFH plans will flip our High Streets into ghost cities

Local businesses are fearful that Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer‘s work from home plans will turn Britain’s high streets into ghost towns and destroy their livelihoods.

Sir Keir unveiled Labour‘s controversial workers’ rights policies during the King’s Speech yesterday, promising the right to flexible working from ‘day one’, where possible.

The measure also aims to give workers immediate access to sickness and parental leave, ban zero-hour contracts, and provide protection from unfair dismissal. 

But small independent businesses across England and Scotland have warned the move could be a disaster for shops and may cause a 60 per cent drop-off in customers.

Owners, citing how many independent shops have ‘gone bust’ following the pandemic, say they ‘don’t support’ Sir Keir’s proposal and have instead called on the Government to ‘focus on small businesses more’.

Traders in the heartbeat of Newcastle have hit out at the Government’s flexible working plan, warning that it will see a decrease in customer traffic that echoes that of the pandemic-era lockdowns.

‘It is not a good idea at all. It will not be good for business,’ George Koumpanakis, who works at Acropolis, a Greek diner inside the Grainger Market, told MailOnline.

Mr Koumpanakis warned that the diner would ‘probably lose around 60 per cent of business’ because it ‘relies a lot’ on office workers coming in on their breaks.

‘If you stay here for a couple of hours you will see how busy it is when offices are on their lunch,’ the 49-year-old said.

‘When people come into work they might buy a coffee from the market and might come here for lunch, but they are not going to be doing that if they’re allowed to stay in the house from their first day.’

He also expressed concern over workers’ suffering from poor mental health, which during lockdown was deemed a global crisis.

Mr Koumpanakis added: ‘I don’t even thinking working from home is good for the workers because it makes them more depressed. 

‘We have already seen the effect when people were at home during Covid and now we might be going back to that.’

Joss Elder, who co-runs King Baby Bagels, echoed Mr Koumpanakis’ claims, saying his shop also relies lunch break traffic.

‘We rely on customers who work in town,’ Mr Elder, 33, said. ‘We do have the apps which people use to order from particularly when the weather is bad but the business has a regular customer base which is important.

‘If people start working from home more then hopefully we will see an influx of people using the apps, but we don’t know that so there’s a lot of uncertainty.

‘In the past when things have changed we’ve tried not to stress but this time we will have to adapt.’

Mr Edler, who has been at the site for three years, added: ‘The Grainger Market had a delivery service during the pandemic but that might not happen this time.

‘A lot of countries have working from home systems in place. I’m all for change if it benefits people and business, but we have to see if this will.’

Leeanne Garwood, who works at Dennis & June’s Sandwich Shop, which sells hot and cold food for the passing tradespeople and office workers, firmly believes that flexible working will have a ‘negative impact’ on business.

Ms Garwood, 38, said: ‘If workers are allowed to stay at home more then it will have a negative impact our business.

‘We rely a lot on people on their breaks coming here,’ the 38-year-old said, reiterating the claims made by neighbouring businesses.

‘People worked from home during Covid and they’ve continued to do that, so these policies would only make it worse.’

Dennis & June’s used to hire six staff but that has since been reduced to four, with a ROTA of two on and two off on separate days.

Ms Garwood has called on the Government to ‘focus on small businesses more’, arguing that ‘they always say they’re going to help but it doesn’t happen’. 

She recalled how the ‘queue’ at Dennis & June’s used to be ‘miles long’ but that has not been the case over the last few years.

‘It’s still OK now and we’re managing but if the Government do this then it will make it worse,’ she said, adding: ‘I would worry for business around here.’

Businesses in Newcastle have also been clinging on to hope that the brand new HMRC building, which is currently under constriction, will boost the footfall.

But the site isn’t expected to open until 2027 and there are now concerns that staff there will be allowed to work flexibly.

‘We’re hoping that once the big office blocks open around the corner then we will see an increase in footfall,’ said Ms Garwood.

‘But that’s not for a little while. We get the builders from there coming in now but once they’re gone hopefully the workers will replace them.’

Mr Koumpanakis added: ‘We would see a massive difference in footfall if more flexible working was brought in.’ 

While most are violently opposed to the proposed policies, Matthew Lawrence, a worker at Firebrink Brewery, located in the city centre, seemed a bit more open to the plan.

‘It depends how many people do take up the work from home option,’ the 23-year-old said, while also warning: ‘But the shops will be affected.

‘We do get some who come here while they’re at work. They come and buy cans and vouchers for office tombolas.

‘You can never how how big the impact will be until it happens but it could be an issue for the places around here.

He added: ‘I want to see the Government help places like this. I’d like to see them bring the 20 per cent VAT on alcohol back down because that is a lot.’

Workers in Leicester have also voiced concerns over the lack of footfall in the city, which they allege is largely due to work from home policies.

Many independent shops in the city have already closed down, with one business owner suggesting as many as 12 in just the past year – and warning that the Government’s plan could see even more businesses shutter.

Miguel D’Almeida has owned Almedia Cafe since 1999, but says the last few years have been the worst for business.

‘You’ve got a city centre business dying down. It’s not just a trend in Leicester, smaller places have been hit disproportionately,’ he said.

‘Monday to Friday you’ve got a huge trough in terms of footfall. The demographic changes drastically. The people who are in town aren’t spenders. Weekends are now busier but you can’t work off one day a week.’

Mr D’Almeida explained how nearly all of the office buildings in the area are ’empty’ and that the cafe has lost ’30 per cent of regulars, minimum, already’.

‘What we get now is people don’t want to come into town,’ he said. ‘These people were here every day. Some of the stuff we were doing with the offices around here, we were seeing them two to three times a day, five days a week. 

‘They’re working from home so there’s absolutely no need to come in. That’s a huge loss of business.’

His cafe heavily relies on foot traffic from neighbouring businesses, noting how the area is ‘densely populated with solicitors and council offices’.

‘For us we’ve seen a percentage that’s fluctuated since 2021,’ Mr D’Almeida said of business. ‘What I would say is that it started with a trend where the city council employed around 60 per cent of the workforce in the city centre, they were the biggest employer.

‘During Covid they sold 80 per cent of their office space. You’ve got a huge domino effect. You’ve got a lot of guys who are CEO’s based in town – they’re working at around 30 per cent occupancy, working two days a week.’

He said the decline in customer traffic has caused the city to lose a dozen ‘established’ businesses in the last year.

‘That’s nearly one a month,’ he cautioned, adding: ‘We’ve been here a quarter of a century, but we’re seriously considering things.’

Withers Sports, which has been operating since 1940 and is located on the city’s famous Lanes Street, has also struggling with footfall since lockdown.

Owner Steve Brett, 59, whose wife works from home twice a week, says flexible working is ‘another way to take people away from the city centre’.

‘There were a lot of offices in the city centre, so there’s your footfall gone,’ he explained. ‘It’s tough, it’s challenging. I don’t think anyone really appreciated the change in lifestyle that covid had for us.

‘There’s a lot of homeless people in the city, all of the usual workers are now home-based. I don’t think we’re that different to anyone else. I never read the manifesto’s as they never do what they say they’re going to. But if they’re here saying this, the independents need footfall.’

He argued that employers need to ‘take people away from working from home’ and ‘bring footfall back’ to retailers. 

‘It always used to be a quite diverse few streets around here. We’ve lost the market here too, that’s moved. The mayor has moved it, so there’s fewer people coming into the city there too,’ he added.

‘We’ve had to specialse to be able to survive. We need office workers who come in on their lunch break to restring their rackets, as that’s where we make a lot. A lot of people did.’

The owner at Dido cafe, who wished to remain anonymous, told MailOnline that he was willing to wait and see whether more people working from home would affect his business.

The cafe makes up one of the longstanding businesses located on Leicester’s historical Lanes.

He said: ‘At first we thought maybe it would affect us people working from home, but instead we’ve been just been busier on the weekends.

‘Customers who are now not working in the city, come to the city at the weekend, in their spare time. Instead of travelling elsewhere.

‘We’re not worried about this. We’re interested to see what will happen, but we still have customers. We shall have to wait and see.’

A woman who runs a gift shop in the city, wished to remain anonymous but said the area was losing its customers.

The unnamed owner said that sell ‘unique’ products and ‘need customers to keep flowing so we can keep afloat.’

‘I know of several family-owned businesses, generational ones, that have gone bust. And I think a lack of people in the city really is to do with that,’ she said. ‘We have huge, multistorey buildings not in use, sometimes all week. We get the odd passing tourist daily, which isn’t good enough.’

The shoppe owner added that flexible working has left what was previously a highly sought-after area quite abandoned.

‘For somewhere as once desirable as the Lanes, it’s a shame,’ she said.

‘I remember once you weren’t able to rent a shop there, there was a queue. Now there’s shop fronts dormant for months. And it’s because of a lack of people.

‘So no, I don’t support more working from home.’

Similarly, business owners in Paisley – Scotland’s largest town – are concerned about the impact that residents working from home could have on the high street.

Elaine Fulton, 65, owns Paisley Gift Cart and believes working from home is ‘good for the people who need it,’ but also says she is scared that the town centre will get even quieter.

She expressed concern over the closing of shops, and the lack of day-to-day visitors into the town centre.

‘I think it’ll be good for people who need it, but I’m worried about the impact on Paisley,’ she said. ‘I do think that working from home is the way things are going, but it’s going to have a big effect on the town.”

Ms Fulton believes that the town’s high street has sharply declined in recent years, and worries that the government and the local council aren’t going to do enough to keep the streets busy.

‘It’s so quiet in town now and that’s a shame – Paisley is a big town,’ she said, adding: ‘I do think the council is also to blame for their parking restrictions and their lack of encouraging people into the centre of town.

‘I don’t know what impact it will have, but it won’t be good.’

Mark, 43, who declined to give his surname, is the manager and chef of a cafe on Moss Street, and says that the impact of working from home has already hit local businesses.

‘We’ve noticed a difference since lockdown – it’s going to happen even more regularly if it’s going to be a regular thing,’ he said.

‘I’m fine with the working from home, but it’s not my trade at all. I can’t cook from home, so it’s not possible for me.’

He said that he thinks the situation is ‘getting worse – quieter in town year on year.’

Ben Bailey, 43, opened his business Bailey’s Antiques in 2021, after the previous owner’s business folded during lockdown.

Mr Bailey says he has seen several town centre businesses close during his four years on the high street, and worries about the impact that lower traffic will have on their ‘old-fashioned business model.’

‘There will potentially be a lot less people in the town centre,’ he said. ‘It’s hard to judge what the effect of these things will have, because it’s a crazy time in general.

‘Retail and hospitality are so different to office jobs, because during lockdown, we either had to shut or come into work, working from home wasn’t an option really.’

He admitted that he was ‘not familiar the intricacies of the plan’ and that giving people more flexibility ‘seems like a good idea’, but also thinks it could contribute to more shopps in the area folding.

‘With our shop, I knew the previous owners folded during COVID, so I took over, and then there were some subsequent lockdowns, so I don’t know what normal is,’ Mr Bailey explained. ‘We’re quite an old-fashioned model – we have Instagram as a form of advertising, but it’s very much a rummage and footfall business.

‘There seems to have been a lot of people who have set up shops and folded quite quickly. We’ve been here for four years, and that’s quite a long time in comparison.’

However, some Paisley shoppe owners believe that the increasing numbers of people set to work from home could have the opposite effect.

Catherine McAtier, 59, who owns craft boutique What If, is hopeful that the policy might increase traffic if locals are able to visit the high street on their lunch breaks.

‘People will be working from home, but they might nip out locally,’ she said. 

‘There might be more of a chance for people to do that than if they’re working 9 to 5 in Glasgow. People still get their lunch hour and their breaks, so there’s a chance they could come out.’

Amanda McKinley, 48, runs the Butterfly Room – a creative workshop space on Moss Street – and echoed Ms McAtier’s sentiments, theorising that those who might not have been able to work without flexible arrangements might be able to help boost the local economy.

‘There are people that maybe couldn’t go out to a job that can work from home,’ she said. ‘That opens it up to a whole new side of people that are suddenly able to get money.

‘I have chronic illnesses, and before I was self-employed, there were times where I would get fully ready for work and then have to phone in sick.

‘If you’re removing challenges, people probably will be more likely to work and get money.’