As businesses across the country respond to the current economic situation, the chairman of The Lane Group spoke with The Leaders Council about the importance of continuing to operate amid a pandemic. Meanwhile an investigation into the introduction of the UK-wide quarantine revealed some 10,000 infected individuals were able to enter the country prior to lockdown.
Leadership in Focus
For the past two decades, Gary Lane has overseen the operations of The Lane Group, a privately owned group of companies that specialise in Industrial and Commercial Roof Refurbishment on a national basis.
The group operates on national contracts for Blue Chip clients, as well as undertaking site surveys, contract maintenance and repairs to the Industrial and Commercial sector, throughout the UK. Lane spoke with The Leaders Council of Great Britain and Northern Ireland about the importance of continuing to try in spite of the pandemic.
He notes: “All we can do is try – try to keep the wheels of the industry moving.”
As an award-winning specialist in commercial roofing and cladding refurbishments, Lane is well placed to comment on the impact of Covid-19 on the world of business. He states that the pandemic has “affected, not just our business, but the whole world business.”
Yet in spite of present circumstances, Lane’s conclusion is markedly optimistic. He says: “There’s nothing we can’t get done – I think we’ll get over this.”
There is much leaders across the country can learn from Lane’s work and from his ethos.
Leadership Today
An investigation has indicated that a failure to introduce a UK-wide quarantine at the beginning of the outbreak saw up to 10,000 infected individuals enter the country.
The all-party home affairs committee said that the government’s “inexplicable” decision to lift lockdown restrictions on those who entered the country between March 13 and March 23, when the official lockdown took place, contributed to the scale and pace of the coronavirus outbreak in the country.
This “highly unusual approach” towards the pandemic was juxtaposed with the actions of both New Zealand and Singapore, in addition to Spain who made the decision to introduce more comprehensive quarantine measures at this time.
MPs said that: “The failure to have any special border measures during this period was a serious mistake that significantly increased both the pace and the scale of the epidemic in the UK, and meant that many more people caught COVID-19.”
Meanwhile, schools minister, Nick Gibb, said that children will return to school in September, in spite of a Lancet study which warns this could exacerbate the second spite.
Gibb said: "We're very clear that all children will be returning to school in September, including in areas of local lockdown such as Greater Manchester.
"It is hugely important for children's education, for their wellbeing, that they do return to school and schools are working enormously hard in preparation for September to make sure that the risk of transmitting the virus within the school environment is kept to an absolute minimum."
Children’s Commissioner, Anne Longfield has said that schools must “be the first to reopen and the last to close during any local lockdowns.”
Leadership in History
Almost one and a half centuries ago today, the cornerstone of the Statue of Liberty was laid on Bedloe’s Island in New York.
The statue, which features the inscription “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free” from Emma Lazarus’s poem “The New Colossus” was made a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1984, and is visited by approximately 3.5 million people each year.
