How is COVID-19 changing public planning?

The situation for local government is changing rapidly - and it won’t go back to being the same. We wanted to understand how COVID-19 is changing public planning by listening to the people who know best. We asked officers across local government: How is COVID-19 affecting the work of planning, housing and regeneration departments? How could it change how we plan in the future? And what might that mean for the way authorities are resourced? This report summarises what we learned during a snapshot in time.

Faced with change on an unprecedented scale, the decisions authorities make now will have long-lasting effects on people’s everyday lives, as well as their built environment. They could also have significant implications for public planning. Authorities are only at the beginning of a long and challenging recovery process. But there is an opening here for local government to take a proactive role in leading the process of rebuilding resilience and renewal.

This report was written and published by Public Practice in June 2020.