The Future of London: Living Local
Recently, Knight Dragon’s Kerri Sibson was joined by renowned property journalist, Anne Ashworth, and Knight Frank’s Seb Warner, to chat about the future of London and its property market.
While the capital’s love of property remains steadfast, this year has accelerated conversations on the future of our homes, neighbourhoods and cities. Seven months on, there’s now a growing consensus on what we want and need from the places we live and work.
In this Future of Life in London mini-series, we’ll be taking a look at three of these key themes and exploring some of the takeaways from our expert panel. First up, it’s the growing prospect of living local, and why having everything on your doorstep is the key to a great place to live.
When it comes to our neighbourhoods, lockdown has shown us that convenience is king. Citing the concept of the 15-minute city – the idea of a place where you can walk or cycle within 15 minutes to everything you need for work, education, shopping or leisure - Anne highlighted the positives of new neighbourhoods and developments guided by these principles.
It might be a term coined back in the 90s, but the prospect of these live/work neighbourhoods is one expected to see somewhat of a revival in post-Covid London. Working from home hasn’t been easy for much of the nation, and has shown us the need for face-to-face collaboration, conversation, connection and creativity – with the office critical to this, but not as we know it.
Anne is one of a growing many predicting our neighbourhoods will evolve through this creation of more ‘localised’ workplaces: spaces for people to work, meet, share ideas and get support, all within 10 – 15 minutes of our homes. Whether that’s incorporating these into the fabric of a new development from the outset, or adapting unused spaces to fit this purpose - as we’ve seen in Westfield London, where unused space in department stores is set to be turned into co-working spaces – better integrating our spaces or work and life is an increasingly prevalent theme.
And it’s not just living and working that is set to become more local. It’s play too. In what could be a big boost for the shop local campaigns, people are spending more leisure time locally and demand for places that have more to hand is on the increase. Locations where you can pop to your gym at lunchtime, meet with friends or colleagues for coffee, or head to your local park for a post-work walk, all close to home.
“...There’s the all-important mix of public realm, green space, shops, cafés and restaurants, as well as educational and healthcare facilities, and transport links – all of which are critical for a successful place – Seb Warner, Knight Frank.”
We can look to Greenwich Peninsula as a good example of a regeneration where the infrastructure – including flexible workspaces - is as important as the homes themselves. As Seb explained, there’s the all-important mix of public realm, green space, shops, cafés and restaurants, as well as educational and healthcare facilities, and transport links – all of which are critical for a successful place.
Want to hear more from the panel of experts? You can watch the full conversation below.
Plus, look out for the next instalment in our Future of Life in London series, where we’ll be taking a deep dive into the importance of a strong sense community.
