Post-COVID mobilities and the housing crisis in European urban and rural destinations. Policy challenges and research agenda

The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on working, travel and residential location patterns have attracted much commentary from scholars and practitioners interested in the future of cities and regions. Focusing on Europe, we discuss how pandemic-fuelled remote working and tourism practices have increased the demand for short-term rentals and second homes in rural/coastal areas as well as a number of desirable cities. The pandemic has accelerated pre-existing counter-urbanisation trends, with implications for housing availability and affordability in various parts of Europe. The policy challenges of regulating the use of privately-owned housing are discussed, followed by proposals for future research avenues

Village Housing

Village Housing explores the housing challenge faced by England’s amenity villages, rooted in post-war counter-urbanisation and a rising tide of investment demand for rural homes. It tracks solutions to date and considers what further actions might be taken to increase the equity of housing outcomes and thereby support rural economies and alternate rural futures. Examining past, current and future intervention, the book’s authors look firstly at the interwar reliance on landowners to provide tied housing and post-war diversification of responses to rising housing access difficulties, including from the public and third sectors; secondly, at recent responses that are community-led or rely on flexibilities in the planning system; and thirdly, at actions that disrupt established production processes: self-build, low impact development and a re-emergence of council provision. These responses to the village housing challenge are set against a broader backcloth of structural constraint – rooted in a planning-land-tax-finance nexus – and opportunities, through reform, to reduce that constraint. Village Housing makes the case for planning, land and tax reforms that can broader the social inclusivity and diversity of villages, supporting their economic function and allowing them to play their part in post-carbon rural futures. It aims to contribute greater understanding of the village housing problem – framed by the wider cost crisis afflicting advanced economies – and offer glimpses of alternative relationships with planning and land

Can ‘permission in principle’ for new housing in England increase certainty, reduce ‘planning risk’, and accelerate housing supply?

In this article we examine the probable impact of moving towards ‘up front’ planning permission for housing schemes in England, on development pace and future housing supply. That examination draws on interviews and focus groups with planning professionals, house builders, land promoters and others involved in land development. We begin by exploring the apparent effect of planning and ‘regulatory risk’ on development, before examining strategies, including upfront ‘permission in principle’ (PiP), that claim the potential to reduce that risk and deliver greater certainty for the development sector. The broader focus for this article is how those compliance-based strategies might operate in England’s otherwise discretionary planning system, in which the power to scrutinise and make decisions rests with local government and elected politicians, and what benefits they might bring

Beyond agriculture: alternative geographies of rural land investment and place effects across the United Kingdom

Global land ownership patterns have been shifting in recent decades, as institutional and non-traditional investors redirect capital into rural areas. Such investment is a stimulating alternative for innovative profit-driven land uses that move beyond agriculture. This paper explores how ‘new money’ economies have created place effects in three rural case studies across the United Kingdom, through concepts of built, natural, social, and economic capital. The case studies are informed by secondary research, site visits, and interviews, providing snapshots of investment impact. They represent diverse transformations in rural land use via new forms of direct investment, active investment, and processes of financing rather than financialisation, with distinct spatial and temporal characteristics. The case studies include new wine production in Kent, England; transforming the Menie Estate into Trump International Golf Links Scotland (TIGLS); and farm diversification in Northern Ireland. The conclusions tell three investment stories, where place effects reflect the dichotomies, contestation, and symbiosis between investors and local contexts. New land uses create place effects where economic potential often conflicts with natural capital impacts, although they foster knowledge creation and exchange. The underlying values of the investors and their navigation of local politics also have key roles to play in shaping the built, natural, social, and economic place effects

New East Manchester: urban renaissance or urban opportunism?

In this paper we ask how a shrinking city responds when faced with a perforated urban fabric. Drawing on Manchester’s response to its perforated eastern flank - and informed by a parallel study of Leipzig - we use the city’s current approach to critique urban regeneration policy in England. Urban renaissance holds out the promise of delivering more sustainable - that is more compact, more inclusive and more equitable - cities. However, the Manchester study demonstrated that the attempt to stem population loss from the city is at best fragile, despite a raft of policies now in place to support urban renaissance in England. It is argued here that Manchester like Leipzig is likely to face an ongoing battle to attract residents back from their suburban hinterlands. This is especially true of the family market that we identify as being an important element for long-term sustainable population growth in both cities. We use the case of New East Manchester to consider how discourses linked to urban renaissance – particularly those that link urbanism with greater densities - rule out some of the options available to Leipzig, namely, managing the long-term perforation of the city. We demonstrate that while Manchester is inevitably committed to the urban renaissance agenda, in practice New East Manchester demonstrates a far more pragmatic – but equally unavoidable – approach. This we attribute to the gap between renaissance and regeneration described by Amin et al (2000) who define the former as urbanism for the middle class and the latter as urbanism for the working class. While this opportunistic approach may ultimately succeed in producing development on the ground, it will not address the fundamental, and chronic, problem; the combination of push and pull that sees families relocating to suburban areas. Thus, if existing communities in East Manchester are to have their area buoyed up – or sustained - by incomers, and especially families, with greater levels of social capital and higher incomes urban policy in England will have to be challenged

Covid-19 and London’s Decentralising Housing Market – What are the Planning Implications?

This practice review examines some of the early evidence, and reporting, of housing market change in England prompted by the Covid-19 pandemic. Taking a transect from central London, through surrounding near-urban areas, to the countryside beyond, it looks at the possibility and implications of more dispersed housing market choices and what sorts of challenges these may present to local planning practice. The pandemic has the potential to accelerate multiple home ownership (MHO), widening current inequalities in the distribution of housing wealth and bringing new demand pressures to near urban and rural locations