How did the COVID "race for space" change the area where you live?

[ChickyBricky]

I'm not living in the UK and am curious to know how places have changed since COVID. If coastal and rural areas suddenly became more popular, has that interest ebbed? With more people WFH, has it changed the face of places that were once considered remote?

When I did live in the UK, I was close to open fields and would go for long walks, rarely meeting another soul. During COVID, apparently, there were mounted police trying to control the crowds!

I'm just trying to get a feel for how things have changed and whether it will ever go back to the way it was.

It's all normal where I live, SE. Not sure where your mounted police were but they're long gone if they ever existed at all!

and yes I live rurally where people were complete tossers out in the countryside during covid, they've all gone back to the shopping malls now thank god

I'm in a city and it hasn't changed much here at all.
The main change was that our local community-run centre has now taken on lots of more services that were traditionally run by the council. They were a mutual aid hub and did it so well the council finally noticed them and gave them other paid services to run. It's been really good. Lots more community organising too.

Not much change here (SE), coffee shops have more people working in them and it's not unusual to hear people on work calls through earbuds as you go for a country walk but I don't know anyone who has moved house on the basis of WFH, most people are back in the office at least once a week now.

I think there was one beach incident but that was it. Apart from that I don’t think there were crowds outdoors. Not that I saw anyway.

We had some extended pavements for walking/cycling that then became cycle paths. It’s also seen as less weird to just go for a walk in the woods on your own. Also seems to be more accepted to step out into a quiet road if the pavement is full/your dog is scared of the one coming toward you. Those are the only remaining differences that I observe.

I live about a 30 minute train ride from London and would say that this area is being heavily developed and I suspect it's people like me, the "hybrid" working crowd who want the convenience of a quick journey to work for work-from-work days and the quieter suburban setting for WFH days.

Sounds like the new reports mixed up protests or events with recreation. Only change here is dogs seem to be allowed in more places. Still can go walking with only meeting people very occasionally.

Thanks everyone for your replies, I sort of imagined the UK transformed irreversibly, but perhaps not.

It was a friend who told me about the mounted police, but that was at the height of lockdown when it seems everyone went a bit mad for space, not surprisingly.

Wasn't that a crazy time to be alive...

I see a lot more family get togethers and birthday parties in our local parks. One with a big lake gets really busy that the car park can't cope.
Well, on the few days it hasn't been raining.

I live in a fairly rural area just outside the edge of a very popular tourist area. No noticeable change in popularity here, either in the immediate aftermath of Covid or now.

You know I've been talking to my family about this recently. I really thought at the time that Covid would change everything and things would be different afterwards.

Now a few years latter, apart from DH being able to work from home some days. Nothing else about life has changed. DH said not in a callous way, it didn't kill enough people to have a drastic effect.

I live in a coastal area popular with walkers. It was horrendous during the pandemic with joggers, cyclists, dog walkers and families. You literally had to walk in the road as it was so packed. It’s also a residential area and you would get 100 people passing your front door every half an hour (no exaggeration, someone counted.) After complaints there were signs telling people they couldn’t come in to the area and there were police at the end of the road for a while. It’s still popular with walkers especially on bank holidays but it’s back to normal now!

Not being funny, but I thought it might be like a reversal of the Industrial Revolution, where everyone moved from the countryside to cities.

Sounds as though the UK I knew and loved still exists, then. 💗

I don’t know anyone who actually moved and I didn’t see it in my area.

I live rurally. Only people i see more regularly are ones that took up running, jogging, walking through pandemic. Theres absolutely nothing here , bar a farm, fields etc, no shop no pub no community hub, so its isolated and rural..we don't get many outsiders round these ere parts lol.
I noticed the amount of rubbish decreased through pandemic, massively. Obvious anger inducing... Mcdonalds rubbish thrown out car windows in countryside..i go pick them up but ive noticed more rubbish now...pizza boxes? Who the?!!! In the hedgerows. Rubbish rather than people.laziness

I live by the sea and there are definitely more wild swimmers and people coming to the beaches than before Covid. But not crowds by any stretch.

Pre covid the government tried to close our walk in centre but there was outcry and it didn't happen. During covid it was used as a vaccine centre and then conveniently not opened back up again...

Loads more people got dogs and started walking them in my area. They e still got the dogs, but they’re generally not well trained and their owners have realised what a long term commitment it is.

You can’t swim in the sea here.

@Loubelle70 Ugh! On my last trip to the UK I noticed more rubbish around, too. I wondered if it might be delivery drivers or just generally people passing through. With everyone ordering things online, there's more traffic on the roads generally, plus sat nav = more people taking back roads they'd otherwise not have been aware of...?

@Bluevelvetsofa I had a day out last year in Whitby and every other person had a dog. It was like some kind of dog show, but not in a good way 🤦‍♀️

lots more dogs everywhere is the only enduring change as far as I can see.

During the lockdowns, all of my favourite local walking spots where I live (ie walks that begin at my front door) became much more used than they previously were. Narrow, overgrown and partially hidden footpaths became wider and wider, turning into muddy tracks.

Some of them have remained in their new, widened state and are still used much more than previously. I think a lot of people just didn't know the paths were there before Covid.

Thankfully, the less pretty routes have now almost returned to their pre-covid state and I can usually find a walking route where I meet very few, if any, other people.

I live in the countryside. During Covid there was an upsurge in family groups walking along the lane past my house. Now it’s back to dog walkers.

Other than that no changes that I noticed.

We’ve rural and there was a few people who moved here from cities on the basis of wfh, but not many as houses don’t go up for sale often. In fact the only reason I know about one of them is because the house is back up for sale and that’s very rare here.

The biggest changes here were actually local childcare. We had (I chaired) a playscheme and out of school care that was all volunteer led. It had run since I was a child and stayed the same in terms of not having paid staff (all registered and inspected by Ofsted and better rated than the local ‘professional’ outfit). Parents were absolutely horrific to our committee when we couldn’t open due to the council not allowing us to rent school space we used. There were so many “urgh people are just being lazy” comments - about volunteers who spent hours finding funding for training and trips and essentials so they could provide holiday, before and after school care for low cost (£15 a week in the holidays…) - that one by one everyone gave up.
Its impacted parents, the kids, the school (we used to staff the walking bus every day), and the college & uni students they used to come for work experience (generally we had 2 every year).

One of the pubs has banned dogs as a result of the number of badly behaved lockdown dogs.

I live at the edge of a commuter town just outside London, countryside on the doorstep. I haven’t noticed any difference whatsoever! The only change I’ve seen since Covid is people being less nice to each other, which is the opposite to what I expected.

I'm S London, close to more countryside areas.

Dogs everywhere - loads of them, most of them poorly trained, and shit all over the pavements like there was in the 70s
Loads more people around during the day - I suppose they are 'WFH', and there is more traffic on the roads throughout the day rather than clearly defined rush hours.
Lots more large sheds garden offices being built in suburban gardens
Inability to be spontaneous as so many places have retained the need to book online before going.