Agenda item

The Chair invited Ellie Law and Esther Barrott, Policy Advisers, to introduce the report and set out a series of presentation slides.

Ellie and Esther presented a series of slides which provided an update on the findings of LGA officer research into demographic changes resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic and set out the implications of the findings for the levelling up agenda.

Board Members made comments which related to the following points:

• An increase in planning applications, reflecting a possible desire from residents to expand their housing but remain in the same place.
• The need for fairer salaries and reasonable working hours, and how this related to the Government’s Levelling Up agenda.
• Changes in rental prices following the pandemic, and how this could be taken into account in the work.
• How this work could tie into other work of the board, including the Levelling Up Locally inquiry and the future of cities.

Decision:

• Board Members noted the report.

Action:

• Officers to feed Board Members’ comments into the inquiry and provide regular updates cross-referencing more up-to-date census data to the Board.
• Officers to link the work of the inquiry and the comments made by Board Members to the Future of UK cities project.