How much of a necessity is having a car where you live?

[OneRealFinch]

Not very maybe at night more so

Once again.

Where are all the magic city houses and flats for all the selfish ignorant rural dwellers and provincial town dwellers to move to?

Seriously the hand waving to say 'you are not my problem or consideration but you should still give up your cars because you are selfish' is quite the look.

The key word here is 'chose'.

That's the word that people keep on glossing over.

Not everyone can afford the luxury of that choice.

My son moved to a small city for his first job after graduating. He found a flat just within the outer ring road within 10 minutes walk of a bus stop. Thought it was all good. This is a city that promotes public transport and is doing all it can to deter motorists via one way streets, bus lanes/gates, blocking rat runs, etc.

In reality, the bus service is absolutely crap from his flat. Despite it being in a built up area, the service is hourly between 7 and 9, so he only has one bus option at 8-15 to get to work for 9am. At least once per week, that bus simply doesn't turn up. If he waits an hour for the next, he'll be late for work. So, he can just about jog 20 minutes to a different route and hope he's in time for the 8-40 which will get him to work late, but not too bad. Of course, if that doesn't turn up either, he's not only going to be sweaty at work, he's also going to be an hour late!

He wants to come home at the weekend to watch our local football games. Thought it would be easy enough to get a train home, after all he's less than 90 miles away. No! No direct trains, so he has to change around half way. The LAST train from the half way station is 7-15 and to guarantee getting there, he has to leave work early to catch the 4-30 from his city station! He came over 9 times and twice the 7-15 was cancelled at short notice leaving him stranded at the intermediate station, meaning he had to get a train back to his city and give it up as a bad job! Which clown thinks a "LAST" train of the day at 7-15 is in any way acceptable, and even less acceptable when they glibly cancel it??

Anyway, he's bought a car!! He can't drive to work in the city centre because of the council's war on motorists, so he drives out to the park n ride!! He's also driving home at weekends, and also been driving to away football matches, as he's been let down so many times by the trains (this is Northern Rail around Manchester, so anyone living in the area knows how bad the railways are!).

I did read your post. You claim the majority of people living in villages are only there because they are retired or want a bigger garden. That's not my experience of the majority of villages in North Wales for example where in reality the majority of retirees move into towns because they need better access to facilities.

So Im not sure how many villages you have been to in Wales and Scotland and northern England or Cornwall or Northern Ireland that you can so confidently claim what the "majority" of villages are

Along with the implications from that poster that it's fine to have a car if you are a farmer but not if you are a farmers partner or child, commuting to a nearby town for work because the farm doesn't pay enough to sustain the whole family...

Nope. I said “the majority of people I know in the UK,” the implication being that such people exist and there are a fair few of them. I do not know what % of the UK’s rural residents are of this type or if they are a majority or not. Read posts carefully, please.

(That was in response to the above; not sure what happened to the quote function just now).

That is four times bigger than the market town I am in now.

How is a “village” defined?

Wow your rude! 🤣🤣🤣🤣

Sure I will do whatever you say because you so demand it...

Or this is just a casual chat forum where people are allowed to be people and not perfect

Either way if we are just basing what rural people should do based on your knowledge of a few people then your opinion isnt really that important is it as you clearly have little understanding of rural life across the UK

But a lot of self importance nevertheless

Sure we will all move into cities because you have decided we should based on what your friends have done with their lives 😯😯

Necessity - well, i could survive without one, but life would be dull:

I couldn’t do spontaneous day trips to anywhere

I couldn’t visit my mum easily or cheaply.

shopping and socialising would be in a very small circle.

i work from home so my commuting isn't affected. Teo if my kids still live at home and work in opposite directions, in place unaccessible by public transport.

so in my current household we need two cars.

Try reading AND LISTENING to other people's posts rather than just grandstanding and lecturing others.

It's tone deaf and isn't engaging with the issues that others are raising.

In fairness, though, RedToothBrush, rural living in the UK isn’t always about having a rural job or rural elderly relatives to care for or some other obvious tie. The majority of people I know in the UK who live in villages either commute to the nearest town (or that and a mixture of WFH) or have retired to the countryside. They live in rural locations because they want a bigger garden, “quiet,” space from neighbors and rural hobbies like horses or having an orchard. It’s a perfectly legal choice, but it absolutely is a choice, not something they were forced into. They do drive a hell of a lot. I don’t think they should be stopped from living where they do, but I do think that in a just and fair world, they would have to pay for all the driving they are doing in the form of pay-per-mile road pricing or similar.

Whata strange attitude! No, people are not 'forced' to in the countryside, but a large part of the UK is countryside. It's a normal place to live, not some kind of whimsical hobby. Many people who live rurally were born there, have family ties and maybe can't afford to move away. Most people I know in my rural area do normal jobs. They aren't just farmers and retired people. There's not enough room for everyone in the towns and cities anyway.

As for saying 'You've got shit publuc transport because there's no investment in rural areas, so we will charge you extra for getting around your area in the only way you can...' Wtf?

'I'm alright jack. Everyone should live like me, cos only my life choices are valid and everyone else's life experience is irrelevant'.

It's monumental arrogance isn't it?

Yes, that's a good point. You're right.

Parent of kid in my son's class has lived here all her life. Her family have been here for at least five generations. Her dad lives about 25m from my house in a council house. She lives just around the corner in another council house.

Neither has any reason to move. Nor the ability to.

She does my head in because she drives to school even though it's a six minute walk which is quicker. But I don't begrudge the car they share. Especially since he has a blue badge.

Because they really would be screwed without that car. They need it. They could use it less, but they still need it.

In fact bus services locally have bucked the trend and are increasing as the local population ages (and has more time to get places and have bus passes!)

I have to say, the decision to drop bus prices to a flat £2 has helped a lot.

Previously it could be as much as £8 for a return fare to the next town. And buses stopped at 6pm. There wasn't a lot of difference in cost between that and a taxi.

A lot of people in London haven't appreciated how high bus fares were per mile compared with the Capital. It IS beginning to change up north. A lot to do with Andy Burnhams very sensible move to try and improve the public transport network in Manchester (which is having positive knock on effects elsewhere).

But it was often much more expensive than a car and certainly less practical.

Even now if I wanted to get to certain local towns nearby which are 30mins by car (even in rush hour), it's two and a half hours by public transport. That has massive implications for what jobs you can take and how much flexibility you have for changing jobs. In the past when there was this expectation of 'jobs for life's this wouldn't be a problem but now the trend is to change jobs much more often.

And jobs aren't located close to workers in the same way. Planning deliberately has zones for residential and business.

Jobs in the city centre are limited to certain industries. You aren't going to get a distribution centre in central Manchester - for a reason. Yet people work there. These distribution centres are enormous and hugely critical for our modern way of living - in cities.

There's an irony here for me. People who live in cities don't stop to consider how all the things in cities get there. Do they get there by magic? Who mans this economy? Cos this huge network of distribution is located provisionally and manned by people who tend to live provisionally in disconnected neighbourhoods.

And farms need networks and neighbours too. One of the issues with a decline in farming is the sense of rural isolation that is driving young people away from villages. If you've got no rural community and farms die. A rural community is more than just farmers.

The lack of joined up thinking and understanding different lifestyle and ways of living - which support city living and aren't an alien foreign unconnected concept, is depressing.

That particular poster is refusing to engage with any of the issues posted though and just keep reiterating that its fine if you are a farmer

I mean, what if Im not a farmer but I work in the auctioneers, the animal feed store, the vets or the garage that repairs agricultural vehicles or sells red diesel

Apparently if those are all in the nearby town and not in the village I live in, then I have to move out. Except in the larger village/town where all of these things are located the public transport is still shit and I still wouldnt be able to cope without a car.

So then what? The businesses die without the workers to staff then. But sure destroying the rural economy is fine so long as (some) people in cities can be smug about it. But somehow Im not sure I see how food coming from abroad because we cant grow our own is better for the environment!

And how do I move to a city if no one wants to buy my house because we arent supposed to live here any more?

What happens to all the abandoned houses and villages? Its not like the houses can just be knocked down and make good farm land. Contrary to what that poster believes a lot of houses in the country dont have big gardens, loads of them have tiny ones so who is paying for them to be knocked down to gain a tiny amount of land? Im mean we could flood all the valleys for reservoirs I suppose, there are some people who think thats all small villages are good for...

Not forgetting of course all the listed buildings and areas where you can't just topple a load of houses over.

Plus the destruction of culture that is implicit here. Some of the villages in rural areas have families that have been living there for generations. There are no nearby cities to take them in. Bangor cannot take everyone from Snowdonia for example. So what then? Move to english cities and forget their language and culture? Because Welsh isnt important of course 🙄

Although Im guessing some of the "you must all live in cities" posters seem to have forgotten some of our economy relies on tourism. Because when there is no lake district to go on holiday to, or Welsh coast or cornwall do they really think everyone will be happy with a city break,or will more people go abroad and less people come here. But sure the 997 million pounds of tourism from domestic tourists in Cornwall alone is irrelevant...

So with more food coming from abroad, more holidays abroad and over crowding in the cities thats a fun plan!

Meanwhile I grow 70% of my own food, cover my electric use completely in summer and partially in winter with solar panels, use air source heating, go out in a car about once or twice a week and make some of my own clothes from sheeps wool from a farm that is less than 5 miles away and have no children (although I do have a child living with me)

But that apparently is less environmentally friendly than living in a city using gas heating, nowhere to put solar panels buying food from abroad, having multiple children and buying clothes from synthetic materials which have been mined and manufactured abroad often in sweatshop conditions

Because whilst lots of people in cities wont be doing that, and will be making considered purchases etc loads also wont. And the blind assertion of "city good village bad" lacks subtlety or critical thinking.

If more money was invested in public transport across the whole of the UK we could actually keep the population balanced out more evenly. But I've lived in "greater Birmingham" (yes I know its not actually greater birmingham) and still lived somewhere where I had to walk two miles to the bus stop and get two buses to work so its not like living in overcrowded cities is the be all and end all to having good transportation links

I'm in my 50's and never owned a car.
I've been lucky to always live In walking distance to schools and work and can be in the local city in 40 minutes.
With supermarket delivery now, I just don't think I will ever get a car.

I also live in SE London and I also don't "do" public transport.

That's because I have a disability. If I want to leave my house and actually have a life, I need my car, and I couldn't care less if you think that means we're in a "mess".

NO ONE in this thread has said that people with disabilities should not drive. You have made this about yourself.

And?

You also have no idea why the PP doesn't "do" public transport. Wind your neck in.

I don't think the word "village" is formally defined at all.

The only formal definition from gov.uk is that "rural" means settlements of less than 10,000 people.

I think, historically, it was easier to tell the difference between a town and village due to size, inhabitants, facilities, etc., but that's still really the difference, i.e. whether it has schools, GP surgeries, shops, etc. A town would have all those things whereas a village (of whatever size) probably doesn't anymore.

But with the modern trend of huge housing developments, that is no longer the case. Our "village", historically, was literally a main street with a church, school, blacksmiths, pub, and a few houses, surrounded by farm land with probably 10-20 small farms. It was clearly a "village" in the 1800's! It was extensively built up in the 60s and 70s with many new estates mostly of bungalows. More recently, there are several new housing estates in the surrounding fields, lots of ad-hoc developments in barn/farm conversions, village shop converted into flats, one of the pubs converted to a house, etc. That's all because of proximity to the motorway junction so it's basically a "dormitory" for nearby towns and cities. Still got no facilities, so you can't call it a "town" despite it's size, because it's basically got nothing other than a co-op, petrol station, etc.

A car is essential for me but likely not where I live. I live in a large town, in a suburban estate on the edge near the motorway. I've always worked in other towns or cities and public transport has not been feasible to get me to work anywhere near on time and without at least quadrupling journey time (25-30 mins but 2hrs on a bus with changes) and probably quadrupling stress factors.

DP works from home now but prior to Covid in offices on one of the many industrial estates nearby. He could have cycled. Without traffic, it's 5 mins away. At rush hour it's prob 20 mins max. He spoke about it a few times but it's not appropriate to turn up sweaty with no shower (cycling route is much further).

My dad has not used his car in about 5 years. Says they're a monstrosity and everyone should cycle and to his credit he does cycle everywhere but he works part time with flexible hours and has the time to do this. I don't know any other single person who can make a 20 minute errand take 3 hours.

If you read what I responded to you will feel rather silly.

But they aren’t as polluting…so do you want people to reduce driving for reasons to do with pollution or because you do t want people driving for other reasons? What are they?

My opinion is that we could manage without one (we may have to soon)

We could do online shopping or walk to shops and get taxi home.

Our days of running DC to activities are almost over

We can cycle, walk, use public transport (not great for buses where we live) or use the local car club. Nearest car is 30 mins walk away.

My DH thinks having a car is a necessity.