Preston City Council: story of the pandemic

Yet as Preston City Council leader Matthew Brown reflects on the challenges of leading the authority over the past four months, he is hoping that life on the other side of the Covid crisis will change for the better for the city’s residents.

“It’s still hard to get your head around everything that has happened – but we’ve got to try and bring some good out of something that’s been so traumatic.

“When you have a collective trauma like this, it tends to be minority groups and poorer people who suffer more, sadly – and we’ve got to try to redress that balance.

“Because the reality is that the people who got us through this are the people who have previously been described as low-skilled – the likes of care workers, shop staff, bus drivers. I hope this experience changes the way people think,” he said.

Cllr Brown believes that the “co-operative spirit” which the council has tried to promote in recent years flourished during the depths of the crisis, when community and faith groups pulled together to pull Preston through.

However, his hope for the future of the city is tempered with reality – and the fear of a forthcoming wave of business failures and unemployment.

“The public sector in the city needs to purchase a lot more from locally-based businesses and focus on groups which have lost or will lose their jobs as a result of the pandemic. It should also look at targeting its recruitment in areas of high unemployment.

“My ambition is that the council plays a big role in the recovery, both by doing things itself and also influencing others.”

Cabinet member for community wealth-building Freddie Bailey similarly sees the emergence from the current crisis as an opportunity to “build a better economy – with fairer wages and stronger employment rights”.

“I think the situation we now face strengthens that argument. It’s not anti-business – I don’t want people to stop making profit or becoming entrepreneurs, but I do want workers to share in the rewards,” he said, pointing to planned co-operatives for the BAME community and the taxi trade.

As the council casts a cautious eye to the future, many of the authority’s cabinet are only just emerging from beneath the weight of their day-to-day responsibilities since the outbreak struck.

Robert Boswell, member for the environment, found the services in his portfolio were at the forefront of the practical response to the pandemic.

“Refuse collection was a big challenge – with people being at home more, they generated more waste. We have collected over 2,100 tonnes more rubbish [so far this year] – the waste teams have worked very hard and the public have been very supportive of them.

“I think people likewise appreciated the work to keep our parks open and looking at their best during the lockdown, because they were popular destinations for the daily exercise we were allowed.

“And it was also essential that our markets were kept going, difficult though that was, because they were providing essential food to the people of Preston – so we supported them in establishing home delivery services,” Cllr Boswell said.

For some residents, the pandemic posed the real prospect of being unable to access food at all – either as a result of practical barriers, such as having to shield, or because of sudden, lockdown-induced poverty.

Like all local authorities, Preston was tasked with establishing community hubs to ensure that the most vulnerable were not left without essential supplies – a scheme that ended up supporting 1,200 households a week in the city and delivering almost 20,000 food parcels. Existing food banks also joined the effort and new ones were created.

However, it was volunteers who were the driving force behind both of the relief schemes.

“It has been humbling to see such generosity and community spirit – particularly amongst our faith and community groups,” said cabinet member for community and social justice Nweeda Khan.

“There was no separation between different groups – nobody saw it through that lens at all.”