ARROWS TO THE HEART
It’s Friday, November 13, and Auckland’s Queen St should be buzzing with early Christmas shoppers, office workers on their lunch break and students heading into their end-of-year exams. Instead, as a fresh Covid case comes to light, the CBD is effectively plunged into lockdown, with the Government warning people to stay away from the centre of the city. An estimated 100,000 workers heed the call, along with thousands of shoppers and other visitors.
Reflecting on the short but sudden shutdown, Heart of the City boss Viv Beck describes it as “gut-wrenching, a blow to confidence and confusing”, and she rates the official response to the outbreak at 6 out of 10.
Heart of the City’s members are drawn from the thousands of businesses that operate in the area contained within the innermost boundaries of Auckland’s motorway network. Retail turnover and pedestrian counts in the area are 25% down on this time last year. Beck lives in nearby St Marys Bay,
