Dealing with uncertainty

Both Brexit and now the long-term impact of the Covid-19 outbreak cause considerable uncertainty. As we prepare this document, much of the economy has ground to a halt, with severe impacts on business and employment. Our high streets and town centres are only just reopening with the prospect of giving us a very different shopping experience when they begin to re-open. Our visitor economy will be severely impacted this year. Many people who ordinarily work in offices have now started working remotely, with a knock on effect on commuting. Emerging trends toward online shopping are now accelerating.

We are unsure about the long-term implications as we plan for recovery and what changes that will bring. Has lockdown affected how you might behave differently in the future?.

These factors will need to be understood and considered as the plan is developed. The plan will therefore need to be flexible and respond to the changing circumstances.

Change

What sort of places do we want to be building in the next 15 years? What new ideas, values, and technologies need to be considered? How may we want or need to do things differently in the future? These are difficult concepts, but the Covid-19 experience may make us reconsider the way we do things and lead us to question what has gone before. The table below illustrates some of the change’s society has experienced in the last 15 years and tries to predict some future changes to the way we live our lives and what issues will be important to us.

QUESTION 2: What changes over the next 15 years do you think will affect how we need to plan for residents, businesses and communities?