57% of employees say they travelled to the office in the past seven days

More than half of Britain’s working adults say they have travelled to the office in the past week, according to a new survey, as employees begin to make their way back to their desks in the wake of the coronavirus lockdown.

Figures from a Office for National Statistics (ONS) survey show 57 per cent of working adults reported that they had travelled to work – either exclusively or in combination with working from home – in the past seven days.

Meanwhile, just 20 per cent said they had worked solely from home.

The findings show an increase from the results of an ONS survey in the last week of June, when 49 per cent of working adults said they had travelled in to work, and 29 per cent said they had worked exclusively at home.

The latest statistics are based on survey responses from 1,644 adults in Britain between August 26 and 30.

The findings come after Downing Street denied the existence of a Government ‘back to work’ campaign.

Reports had suggested Boris Johnson was to launch a major drive to persuade more Britons to return to their workplaces, as remote workers were warned they could be more at risk of being sacked.

Downing Street insisted there was no such campaign, but instead that it was reminding employers how to make a workplace Covid-safe in a bid to increase office numbers.

The push to get employees back to the office came amid growing concerns by Tory MPs about the slow speed at which people have returned to their work desks, and after a survey which showed that nine out of 10 people who have worked from home during lockdown want to continue doing so in some capacity in the future.

Meanwhile, a Daily Mail audit of big companies last week found many are not planning for the majority of workers to return to offices until at least towards the end of the year.  

Several bosses said they expected working from home to become the ‘new normal’ after the crisis.

Among the firms contacted by the Mail, consultancy giant KPMG said the majority of its 16,000 office-based workforce were unlikely to return until next year.

Education publisher Pearson, which has about 3,600 office staff, also said workers would not be expected to return potentially until 2021.

It has led ministers to fear huge job losses in town and city centre shops and cafes if workers do not return to their pre-lockdown commuter patterns.

Figures released last month laid bare the scale of the crisis the high street was facing even before coronavirus hit.

Employment in shops in town and city centres fell by a quarter in some places between 2015 and 2018, and dropped in three quarters of local authorities.

The figures emerged amid fears that urban areas are being ‘hollowed out’ because so many people are still working from home due to coronavirus.

There are concerns that the destruction of the so-called lunchtime economy will fuel huge numbers of of jobs losses as the impact of the pandemic reverberates.

Cafe chain Costa has said 1,650 staff are at risk of redundancy as it looks to cut costs amid continued uncertainty over when trade will fully recover following the pandemic.

Coffee and sandwich chain Pret a Manger last month announced plans to axe 2,800 roles from its shops as the coronavirus crisis continues to hammer UK plc. 

It’s believed at least 41,391 UK jobs have been claimed or put under threat since the lockdown was introduced in late March. 

But with schools returning and office numbers increasing, train services will be ramped up from September 7 to 90 per cent of pre-Covid levels as schools reopen and more workers return to the office.

The Rail Delivery Group (RDG), which represents train operators and Network Rail, said services across Britain will be increased to around 90% of pre-coronavirus pandemic levels from September 7.

Timetables were slashed in March as the virus led to a reduction in available railway workers and demand for travel.

On the roads, startling pictures have revealed how many of London’s growing array of cycle lanes lie empty, while traffic piles up in narrowed roads nearby as Sadiq Khan’s war on motorists continues.

Photographs taken this week across the capital in the likes of Tooting, Streatham, Balham, Islington, Mayfair and Victoria showed how the lanes were empty while cars and vans sat in heavy traffic alongside them.

The new lanes were brought in to encourage people to cycle to work by giving them more space and reduce the pressure on public transport amid fears over social distancing issues on the Underground and buses.

It comes as Transport for London had to ask the Government for a £4.5billion bailout after its revenue plummeted by 90 per cent and it quickly burned through its £2billion reserves after the coronavirus lockdown was imposed in March. 

Meanwhile, reports have also surfaced suggesting there was a rift in Government over whether the timing was right to be encouraging staff to return to their desks, with the coronavirus rate still growing in parts of the country.

Former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith told the Mail: ‘The Government needs to stop with its mixed messages.

‘It needs to stop being equivocal and be clear that it is safe to go back to work and take public transport. ‘If you’re under 40 and fit and healthy you have more chance of dying while riding your bike than dying from Covid.

‘People need to start properly weighing up the balance of risk. These employers are absolutely bloody mad for not getting more employees back – all the other small firms that rely on offices being back will go bust.’