Many office buildings, some only recently built, appear to be doomed to remain unoccupied following the realisation that more flexible working from home is good for both businesses and employees. This is an opportunity for Government to put in place practical policies and financial systems that would allow these buildings and the spaces they occupy to be instrumental in a reimagining of what a Town or City Centre should be and look like. At the heart of this should be the acknowledgement that living, business and social spaces created as a result , should cater for as many ethnic and societal groups as possible and should encourage a co operation and communication between ‘New British’ groups and traditionally acknowledged section of society.
The changes to the way our town and city centres are used and the way people move around them gives a good opportunity to look at what is actually wanted or need and to gather data based on what is evolving naturally, with a view to making future plans.
Town planners will get the opportunity to discourage petty urban crime by ‘designing out’ features of layouts that currently cause problems and to encourage better social behaviours and use of social spaces, by the way they implement their knowledge of what is need and wanted, or what would be taken advantage of, were it available.
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