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

Abstract

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.