A history of recovery

We need to rebuild our economy and confidence as we come out of lockdown. History shows Herts has been at the forefront of ideas for recovery before, and can be again

- Stephen Roberts

As the saying goes, ‘things can only get better.’ We’re hopefully past the worst of Covid-19 and we are witnessing a nation and a county emerging from lockdown. There is not yet a permanent solution to the virus and there are gloomy forecasts for the economy, yet we have been here before – more than once – and have recovered and can do so again.

I’ll start with the First World War, the one that should have been over by Christmas, but lasted more than four years and saw the first German Zeppelin shot down over Hertfordshire. Dubbed ‘the war to end all wars’, it was inconceivable there could be another on the same scale. The war and the deadly influenza pandemic that followed it from 1918 to 1920 left the world reeling.

Recovery came quickly though. In Watford, slum clearance had halted in 1914 but recommenced after the war with more council house building. Shortly after the conflict’s end, land belonging to Berkhamsted Hall was sold and many acres developed with council housing. The first of these new homes also appeared in Bushey in the early 1920s. Optimism was in the air: Welwyn Garden City was founded in 1920, Rickmansworth was a ‘Metroland’ town expanding from the 1920s, and Borehamwood became a centre of the UK film industry also from the 1920s.