Analyzing UK Covid Recovery & Mobility with Avison Young

Avison Young is a global commercial real estate services firm, headquartered in Toronto, with more than 100 offices in 15 countries. One of their core beliefs is that commercial real estate isn’t just about the buildings and the square footage and the occupancies. At its best it’s about spaces and places that improve lives and help businesses thrive; for the employees, citizens and communities that make impact matter.

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With the pandemic leading to widespread retail slowdown and permanent work-from-home policies there has been little demand for empty spaces which has greatly impacted the commercial real estate market. With vaccines starting to become available commercial real estate is likely due for a sharp rebound with many people looking to shop, travel, train, and otherwise enjoy a space that isn’t their own home.

Avison Young needed a method to monitor the diversity of market activity and the speed and trajectory of the recovery following the ongoing impact experienced across UK cities as a result of COVID-19.

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Using data from Google Mobility Reports and our Python package CARTOframes, Avison Young visualized movement trends across local authority districts over time.

The map shows how mobility has been affected in the areas of the UK that have seen tighter levels of restrictions and highlights the differentiation between major cities, suburban locations, and those areas which have benefitted, at least relatively, from the changes to our everyday life - from where people go on holiday, to where they work and shop - that have been seen during the pandemic.

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The creation of reports and dashboards such as these using a variety of analytical tools, Spatial Data Science techniques, and a range of modern real-time datasets allows greater insight into how we respond and recover from the pandemic.

For more details on this customer story, read the full blog post.

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