To want to leave London

[DeweyDecibelle]

It's just so expensive! But me and DH both have jobs that are hard to come by outside of London, so we would either have to be very lucky to get new jobs in our sectors, or get unrelated jobs which seems like a waste of many years training and experience and would probably leave us unhappy as we both are happy in our jobs.

Also, both of us grew up in extremely rural places, with no opportunities, and so we want to give our DC the best start in life - to us this includes living within commuting distance of good universities and a wide range of jobs, so the children have the choice to get an education and work in whatever field they choose, while still living at home, should they wish to, so they can save money to set themselves up for the future, an opportunity neither DH or I had due to distance. (Realise this doesn't have to be London, any big city would do, but we are here now).

But I look at houses outside of London, and sometimes I just wish we could up sticks and move.

[Wallison]

Another thing is schools. My friends who still live in London and have DCs are frantic about school places. Seems to me that tutoring from age 7 onwards is common in order to get into the 'right' ones at secondary level, not to mention living in the catchment area of the 'right' primary feeders for those secondary schools, which of course costs £££s. Or, at the other end of the spectrum, getting accustomed to the idea of your kid going to a place where there are needles in the playground and kids take knives to school for self-defence reasons.

[MadBusLady]

RunRabbit You'll settle in. Billions have.

lessons we must be quite near each other!

[lessonsintightropes]

Wallison totally depends which borough. Ours has decent primary provision in the south of it - our nearest six are all good/outstanding and whilst some are oversubscribed, they have been pretty good at bringing in additional form intakes. So they might be a bit overcrowded but the teaching is ok. Secondaries much more of a problem. My DSis lives in a central North London borough and again, no problems really with primary schools but secondaries were a nightmare, no such thing as feeder schools. She ended up sending her DS to prep for 2 years on a partial scholarship before being able to move him back into a great state school.

MadBusLady I was just thinking the same thing!

[MadBusLady]

I am very near a station that is easterly and sounds slightly like a skin complaint

[lessonsintightropes]

Ah ha, I think you are about 2 miles away... I am somewhere named for the last vestiges of an ancient wood, western reaches of Hello neighbour!

[Jan49]

I left London and moved to the south west last year. We lived in London for over 10 years but I also grew up there years ago.

I've absolutely no regrets. We're paying less than half the rent compared to London and about half the council tax. I'm glad not to have to travel on the tube any more. People are so much friendlier and nicer. People bump into you or get in your way and then apologise - unlike London where they just bump into you and get in your way. It's safer living here.

London was good for schools for my ds, but he's an adult now. I wish we'd left sooner. I'd rather earn less money and pay less rent than have a high income and high living costs.

[DumSpiroSpero]

If I was lucky enough to be able to live and raise a family in a decent part of London, with a good job that I enjoyed it would take an atom bomb to shift me tbh.

My parents were born and raised in London, but chose to move to the south coast when I was three, and I'm still here now.

Although our location is great in lots of ways I love London and have never entirely forgiven them!

[namelessposter]

We are leaving central London for Surrey countryside (and doing the commute) next week. 70% excited, 30% terrified!

[MissBetseyTrotwood]

I've been feeling like this recently too. I'm happy with our house but we've had a couple of really nasty incidents recently in our community that have affected us greatly and, tbh, for the first time in 13 years of living here I've felt scared.

We just live so close to our neighbours. One lot are lovely, the others don't seem to be able to conduct their lives as adults at all.

I love London but these recent things have triggered my MH problems again and I think I'm starting to need to be somewhere I can live a bit further away from people.

[namelessposter]

We are leaving central London for Surrey countryside (and doing the commute) next week. 70% excited, 30% terrified!

[marriedinwhiteagain]

The schools - where we live primaries fine - three in walking distance that are fantastic but the secondaries are dire. In our borough there was not a single school we felt able to put on the secondary transfer form for either child. If indy hadn't been an option for us there is no question that we would have had to leave London. Wandsworth.

Where we live one bed flats are 350 but we are a borough of two halves and jhave become more so in the 30 years I have lived here.

[Bunbaker]

I used to live in Greater London and work in the West End. I moved to West Yorkshire many years ago and have never regretted leaving London.

I now live in South Yorkshire and have a nice 4 bed detached house. We also run two newish cars and can afford holidays abroad every year. We live in a semi rural area with outstanding primary schools, an up and coming high school, a train station in our village and access to two major cities within half an hour's drive. I don't miss London at all.

One thing that many people have misconceptions about is that the traffic isn't any better than it is in London. The M62 is the busiest motorway I have ever driven on - much worse than the M25, and the M1 in South Yorkshire is often at a standstill during the rush hour.

[Bumpsadaisie]

We moved out of London to have our family. Not sure what you mean about limited opps for the kids outside of London - we are in the Lakes now with two fantastic outstanding comps to choose from plus two grammar schools that are in the top 50 nationally. I spent my childhood here (and got into Cambridge from one of those comps).

PS I sometimes work out of our London office. It's now only 2hrs 20 mins and I am back to tuck the kids up.

[DogsAreEasierThanChildren]

YANBU. Cost of housing is a killer. We moved out to the sticks (or feels like the sticks anyway - zone 3) when DS was born, and actually that extra distance makes the difference between London life and suburban life. I find the scale of London more oppressive now than I did when we lived more centrally, and I'm spending a lot more on public transport. If we could afford a house somewhere in town I can't imagine anywhere better to live, but commuterville isn't quite the same. However, like you I do a job that I couldn't really do outside London, so moving away altogether isn't an option for us, although DH would like to.

[monkeymamma]

Move. We did, and never looked back. We moved to a commuter town 40mins away by train, we both work on London so we get that city buzz, still see our friends, can get to topshop flagship store in my lunch break etc. But when we get home we have a lovely house with a garden, DS is happy here with lots of wee friends, loads of playground to go to and his nursery fees are half what they'd be in London. A four bed house here is typically 200k and everything, I kid you not, is cheaper/easier.

[valiumredhead]

We left after 20 years 6 years ago, never regretted it.

[Phineyj]

There are big swathes of SE London/formerly parts of Kent that are great value at least by London standards. The parts of East Kent/coastal Kent with recently improved train services are also worth a look.

I find when people think London is so terribly costly they are often in the north or west parts.

[Squitten]

Me and DH were both born and raised in London - me right in the centre and him in a posh suburb. We have often considered moving out but realise that we're too used to the conveniences of living here and would really miss it. I think we're just London people at heart!

That said, we've found a pretty good dompromise in moving to a really nice suburb area where the transport links are fantastic and there's lots of green space so it doesn't feel too hectic but we can still go into the middle for all the good stuff. Schools were a major worry but we got very lucky and our eldest has just got into an excellent primary school.

[Pobblewhohasnotoes]

We live in south London, managed to buy a 3 bed house on a lovely quiet road where the neighbours talk to each other, it's lovely! We've been lucky, so it can be done.

That said I would like to move away eventually but I'm not sure I like the thought of disrupting DS at school (not that he's in school yet ). It will be impossible for DH and I to both get jobs out of London though, in London you get choice.

[Bunbaker]

I am intrigued to know what kind of jobs are only available in London apart from highly paid bankers and stockbrokers.

[Mimishimi]

YANBU, DH was offered a role there a couple of years ago or in Hong Kong. I said no way to London because with taxes and high property prices, we would have been a lot worse off. Not to mention weather . I said yes to Hong Kong which is a whole other story (DD was miserable) but at least we didn't come out of that financially worse off.

[DumSpiroSpero]

Phiney I agree re house prices and it's a shame the SE gets overlooked at times. I'd far rather live there than 'posher' West London tbh.

DD and I visited family in Richmond a while back - it took us twice as long to get the 5 miles to the V & A from their home than it would have done from ours!

[DeweyDecibelle]

Hello, OP here, just to answer a few things and join back in!

MadBusLady, TOTALLY agree, I get so annoyed with people who say London is noisy, people rude etc, when my experience is not that at all. Obviously the touristy bits are busy, and you will find rude people in any town or city! I do love it here, I just get house/garden/car envy when I see friends and family in different parts of uk.

I do live in a naice part of North London and could definitely move somewhere cheaper, and am looking to do so as we want to buy, but all my friends are here and it's a bit daunting to move! But I've moved from one end of the UK to the other by myself before so I should stop being so silly!

People who commute - I have been thinking about this. Aren't the differences swallowed up by commuter costs? Plus I'm only PT at the moment since having baby so there isn't really a cost effective way to commute PT is there? Plus, childcare and not seeing baby during week. But maybe something to think about for future.

Someone asked about why I think opportunities are limited - I mean for when they are starting out in life at 18 or so. I had to move from Northern Ireland to the mainland UK to do my course as it wasn't available in NI. I may not have taken them up on it but I would have appreciated the choice to live at home and save money if I wanted. My job, I would be in a slightly different and more interesting sector of it if I had been able to afford to work as a lowly paid (or unpaid!) intern, but as I had rent to pay I had to take whatever I could. It's not a sob story by any means, but I would just like to be there, should my DC wish to use me, thus affording them opportunities I didn't have to make a start in life. Does that make sense?

And as for those wondering what jobs are only available in London - there are related jobs in other parts if the country, sure, but few and far between and very competitive. Chances of me and DH getting them in the same place are slim, not impossible, but slim.

It's good to hear I'm not the only one though and have appreciated reading your thoughts!

[tomverlaine]

I sympathise. I have a job which is only available in London and having lived in London for years am now in leafy surrey (aka commuter hell) - I would move if I could do a city outside of the south east - not really because of expense but because of lifestyle - I'd like to be somewhere without long working hours/long commutes/easy access to country and city/moremixed community/schools etc-