Ben Lowry: Five years after lockdown, Belfast is almost busy again

(Click here to read Ben Lowry’s main column on the A5)​

As recently as two years ago I was still concerned that it would never really return to pre covid normality, and in some respects it has not yet done so.

But now the city is bustling and often busy, despite the fact that so many people in once office-based jobs now work from home.

Before lockdown there was much talk about Belfast not having enough of what is known as Grade A office capacity – offices that are considered to be highly furnished and equipped and modern. Now if anything it has a surplus of such. You will see plenty of For Sale or To Let signs.

Yet traffic into the city is nonetheless heavy. On Monday morning I drove in to work and noticed that the roads had barely any congestion, and I travelled in more quickly than I had expected. I thought it was because the summer holidays had begun.

But on Tuesday the rush hour had returned. This is because many people now work three days in the office, Tuesday to Thursday. A car park that I thought would never recover the sort of usages levels that it enjoyed pre lockdown is now often full during the mid-week, so that vehicles are turned away.

It is too early to say what all this means for the future of work and urban areas – but cities are not in fact dying, as I had begun to fear when Belfast still seemed lifeless in early 2023.

Ben Lowry (@Benlowry2) is News Letter editor