A poll conducted by Ipsos MORI shows that 44 per cent of Britons believe that the attraction of cities as a place to live will decrease in the next few years.

Alongside this, 39 per cent see cities become less desirable as a place to work, while 19 per cent believe that cities will become more desirable.

There was also a drop in the appeal of urban areas in the 18 to 34-year-old cohort, 22 per cent of whom said they’d prefer to live in a big city if given the choice. Two years ago, Ipsos MORI says, 28 per cent answered in the affirmative.

Meanwhile, 33 per cent of those polled expect to see a rise in how much they work from home within the next 12 months and 12 per cent see this level going down.

Research director Ben Marshall says that relative to the population of other countries, Britons have tended to be “cooler” on city living.

“As well as long-term factors such as declining air quality, congestion and housing affordability, there are likely to be some short-term concerns at play; in April we found people expecting city-dwellers to be to hit harder by Coronavirus than those in rural areas,” he adds.

The Money Group director Martin Stewart proffers: “I can see a lot of trends, demographics and habits changing because of the Covid-19 crisis. Anyone saying differently is simply not looking at the bigger picture. We have been on the receiving end of a 20-year barrage of marketing talking about the ‘experience’ of things and now we enter a period where we won’t be able to experience a lot of those things which we once took for granted.

“A number of our first-time buyer clients have withdrawn their applications or reconsidering what and where they are planning on buying. One of the main drivers is the fact they can get more value for money the further out they go and seeing as many don’t expect to be doing the 9 to 5, Monday to Friday commute in quite the same way again. It is causing many to question what they want from a property.

“On top of this, if we see large-scale redundancies, many people may look for a job closer to home. Factor in the ‘fear’ that a large metropolitan city may be susceptible to another pandemic and I think many people are reconsidering a lot of things right now.

“It is far too early to call anything with any degree of certainty but the old adage of ‘adapt or die’ could now easily be applied to cities as much as it does to businesses.”