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Pandemic mobility, second homes and housing market change in a rural amenity area during Covid 19 - The Brecon Beacons National Park, Wales

Gallent, Nick; Stirling, Phoebe; Hamiduddin, Iqbal; (2022) Pandemic mobility, second homes and housing market change in a rural amenity area during Covid 19 - The Brecon Beacons National Park, Wales. Progress in Planning 10.1016/j.progress.2022.100731. (In press). Green open access

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Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic has been presented as a critical change driver for rural amenity areas, precipitating urban flight and a decentralisation of housing choice and investment. House prices in both near-urban and more distant rural markets saw considerable growth in 2020 and 2021, linked to a mix of second home investment, expanded demand for holiday letting, migration to exploit flexible-working opportunities, and homebuying for early retirement. These demand-side pressures, apparently accentuated by the pandemic, combine with supply-side constraints on development in rural areas (which can accommodate a limited amount of additional housing) to produce significant housing stress. However, processes affecting some areas, in different parts of the world, have arguably been generalised to all areas, and localised processes remain under-investigated. This monograph explores the experience of the Brecon Beacons National Park in Wales, UK – an amenity area with good connectivity to a number of major urban centres and therefore sources of extra-local housing demand. Focusing on second home buying, as a leading element of extra-local pressure in amenity areas, the monograph considers the particular circumstances of this area. It shows that a combination of amplified demand-side factors, linked to the pandemic, and heightened supply-side constraints, due to a phosphate crisis affecting the National Park’s major river catchments, requires a programme of actions that extends beyond the housing domain in order to resolve escalating housing market challenges and associated community and economic risks.

Type: Article
Title: Pandemic mobility, second homes and housing market change in a rural amenity area during Covid 19 - The Brecon Beacons National Park, Wales
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1016/j.progress.2022.100731
Publisher version: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.progress.2022.100731
Language: English
Additional information: © 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Keywords: Second homes, Holiday lets, Covid-19, Phosphate pollution, Rural areas, Wales, Change of use, Planning control
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of the Built Environment
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of the Built Environment > The Bartlett School of Planning
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10160012
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