A changing reality
Covid-19 had a significant physical, emotional and financial impact on the UK. We were all affected one was or another. However, it also provided an opportunity for us to pause and reassess how we lived our lives pre-Covid.
For many, the stresses and strains of the daily commute and the long hours in the office had already taken a toll on our health and wellbeing. Lockdown reminded many of simple pleasures like spending time with friends and family and living life locally.
As lockdown eased in summer and autumn 2020, many chose not to return to the office full time. Instead, they continued to work from home in some capacity, contributing to increased activity in their local communities; formerly sleepy high streets were reinvigorated as people shopped, dined and socialised closer to home, and neighbourhood parks were teeming with life. However, the cost of living crisis has changed consumer behaviour and the UK population is reducing their spend and seeking out best offers over local and independent products. Coupled with increased time spent at the workplace, the support for our local centres and high streets has waned. Nevertheless, some of the impacts of Covid-19 are likely to be permanent and the shift towards more local lives and sustainable, walkable neighbourhoods is likely to remain a strong influence on future placemaking strategies.
With many still working part of their week at home, residents have become more discerning and demanding more from the places where they live. Lucy Greenwood, Director of Residential Research and Consultancy at Savills, points out that good walkability, access to local amenities and greenspace are now higher on the list of priorities for buyers, and houses are favoured over apartments.
This is not something new. Revisit the 19th Century town planning endeavours and we find the same qualities that people are longing for now in the Garden City envisaged by Sir Ebenezer Howard in 1898: sticky streets where people linger, mix of uses, walkable and pedestrianised places and the invigorating presence of natural environments. These characteristics are also designed into modern community developments such as Poundbury, Nansledan, Burghley and Derwenthorpe, as we explored in the Placemaking One report.
So often, rural and peri-urban developments are designed as sleepy mono-use commuter towns, places to return to after a day in the city. The urban design and architecture often follow pattern books that are replicated across the country, creating places that feel somewhat generic and decontextualised. If we are serious about developing sustainable and vibrant places for community life and commerce, we need to move away from mono-cultural housing estates and towards a whole-place approach that puts people centre stage.
Landowner investment and care over time can add true value long-term for mixed-use places, with benefits that ripple beyond the development boundaries and into the wider area. Furthermore, the pandemic demonstrated that the 15-minute model, where people’s daily needs can be met within a short walk from home, is more resilient than its mono-cultural counterpart. Charles Dugdale, Partner at Knight Frank, argues that all the trends that covid harnessed were already emerging: “There was an unrealised appetite to do things differently, and it just got captured in a moment in time.”
"There was an unrealised appetite to do things differently, and it just got captured in a moment in time."
Charles Dugdale, Partner at Knight Frank
