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Monday 10 May 2021 5:49 pm  |  Updated:  Monday 10 May 2021 7:56 pm

Boris: London will ‘bustle’ again as lockdown ends and remote working era fades

By: Hannah Godfrey

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Cities and towns will again "bustle" when social distancing measures are eased.

Cities and town centres will “bustle” once again with people wanting to interact in a way familiar to them, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said this evening.

Today Johnson announced England would continue with its planned easing of lockdown restrictions from 17 May, which will see people allowed to meet indoors for the first time in months and hug their close friends and family.

Very little guidance was given on working from home, however, and for how long that should continue when lockdown restrictions ease further on 21 June.

With that said, Johnson said he expected cities and town centres to once again “bustle” when work from home guidance is amended, with people keen to return to interact in a way that was familiar to them pre-pandemic.

“The more people can communicate remotely with brilliant electronic devices, the more able they are to meet other people over the internet, or through the ether, the more reasons they find to meet face to face,” he said.

“I’m pretty certain… that eventually our town centres and city centres are going to be full of bustle, full of people wanting to interact in the way that they always have done.

“I might be mistaken in that, but I’ve long experience in watching how metropolises operate that leads me to support that that is what will happen.”

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