To wonder where are all the poor people in the South East supposed to actually live?

[AbsentmindedWoman]

I rent privately, self contained space but essentially a lodger - ground floor flat. It looks like the family will need their place back sharpish due to illness, so I've started looking at rentals again.

Fed up. I've seen some horrific shitholes of studios and they're still hugely expensive. I'm in London zone 2, and looked at moving further out but it's still expensive. For a studio, Croydon is not significantly cheaper than London. Nor is Brighton, where I have family links to, hence looking there. Brighton is also close enough to be able to come to London for all my hospital stuff, as I'm an outpatient of Guys and Thomas and Moorfields plus have ongoing appointments trying to figure out fibromyalgia and gynae problems.

Weary of house shares now in my thirties and there are aspects of my health that make sharing quite stressful when it's a bunch of strangers. I don't want to share a bathroom and I don't want to share a fridge where I store my extensive medication. I guess maybe an en suite room, if I bought my own fridge for my room would be fine though.

Obviously I could well end up going somewhere like Manchester or Birmingham or Glasgow, or elsewhere, if I get really stuck - but that's just me as an individual, just one person.

There must be thousands and thousands of people in a similar pickle, including families with small kids in school. Leaving London and the south east of the country can't be the solution for everyone too poor to pay the market rent? Not everyone can up and leave?

What will happen regarding the whole unsustainable rental situation?

So the answer is to build all over every field in the South - great - - how about people not actually being allowed to own more than one house - i know it is a bit dictatorish

Bracknell. You can buy a large ex council 3 bedroom house for ~£250k or rent for £1200, excellent local services, lots of green space, brand new town centre. Commutable to London in about an hour but lots of big company HQs nearby so low unemployment... Place has just got bit of a branding issue so no one wants to move there!

I haven’t read the whole thread but what about Haywards Heath, easy to get to London and Brighton, and cheaper than both?

Just seen that someone has already suggested Hayward’s Heath I’ve lived in HH and Burgess Hill, and preferred HH but both are good.

OP, you don’t have to move hospitals when you move home, as long as you can still manage to travel to your 3-monthly clinic appointments. (Is it still 3 monthly for adults?). Anyhow, Patient Choice! What will change, though, is the CCG responsible for paying for your pump. Worth talking it over with your current team.

70 million people, infrastructure for 50 million, refusal to pay more taxes,all want to live in the bottom corner. Hence this result.

But the bottom corner needs people to do all the stuff that the Russian oligarchs don't do. Unfortunately fuckwit politicians dont get it, and slumlords prosper. Licensing is useless ( look at rentsmart in wales) - it needs enforcement but there isn't any.

Shitholes don't rent for fortunes elsewhere, but that's not much use if you need to be in the bottom corner.

Screaming corbynisms won't help. Paying higher taxes and spending correctly will, but we won't vote for that.

IvorHugh: whilst it is true that London ‘sucks in’ (attracts) many of the jobs and opportunities, London is as a result, a net contributor to every other region in the country.

So you could say that every ordinary, average-wage Londoner living in tight circumstances in expensive housing, in an area of work that mostly exists in London, for example, is stopping things being worse beyond London.

But I agree that investment, jobs, commerce etc should be spread more strategically around the country. For everyone’s benefit.

Get rid of green belt? What a load of tosh. That's what makes Britain attractive and it's what stops all the towns from running into one another in one giant sprawl. Fill it with development and you mess up transport and pollution even more.

Regenerating empty town and city centres - see the rows of boarded up houses in stoke or the empty industrial sites as you drive out of Manchester - with actual affordable housing rather than identikit luxury apartments is much better.

Actually the new regulations are only going to make it worse. Small time LLs are selling up so supply is reducing. Planning departments are still listening to NIMBYs.

I own land and have been trying to build family homes on them for friends who are earning average incomes for over a decade. It's insane. Green belt rules are absolutely ridiculous when you see how they are applied.

On MN the answer often is "just move away" but London needs normal people with normal jobs to function, otherwise it would just be multi millionaires and council housing and nothing in between (not that they aren't normal people, but ykwim).

The economically correct solution to this is that when London employers find they can't get staff, because staff can't live on what they pay, the employers will have to choose between doing without or paying more.

I say "economically correct" because nine times out of ten in a thread where people don't like the price of something, their solution seems to involve political intervention to fiddle with that market price, which is economically corrosive.

People are too emotionally attached to London.

I wouldn’t want to live somewhere I couldn’t own my own home at some point.

I can sympathise you wanting to stay near health services which are vital to you . I have the same issue, I like my Gp and the health care locally.... and you are under Guy's I think you said.

Just a tip.
Don't go North.

Beyond gruesome.

I second Bracknell. It’s on its way up. Shiny new town centre. Good infrastructure. Different communities. Lots of green.

I've lived in the same place in London for 30 years. I was driving past an overgrown lot next to the main road which could potentially hold a a couple of 25-storey tower blocks. It's been that way for the whole of the 30 years. I'm guessing there's some sort of planning restriction on what can be built, it's next to a very large listed industrial building.

I think there's something badly wrong with the property market, that there's so much under-utilised space in such an expensive city. I think planning and prejudice against high-rises must take some of the blame. (The prejudice seems to have vanished in the last several years, there are lots of towers being build near me. Unfortunately we are (for example) talking 1.5 million pounds for a two-bedroom flat...)

IvorHugh: whilst it is true that London ‘sucks in’ (attracts) many of the jobs and opportunities, London is as a result, a net contributor to every other region in the country.

Although part of that is because of the age at which people tend to move to London, of course. London benefits from people in their 20s, who have spent the younger and more expensive periods of their lives living elsewhere, and then come to London at the point when their education has stopped being a drain and they've begun to pay taxes. And this is before we consider infrastructure spend.

Not that this is the fault of Londoners. It's no more you lot's fault than anyone else's, and I don't think you actually benefit from the situation either, on the whole.

What’s wrong with the north, north of England I guess as nothing exists above the border?...
You might think the north is ‘beyond gruesome’ but I wouldn’t live in the south for any amount of money. My parents live down south and I don’t mind a visit but love to get home. Op I hope you find somewhere suitable, must be stressful for you. Good luck x

To be fair, there is a good argument for propagating speakout's daft comment, so that lots of southerners don't come and infest the north!

Thanks for all the thoughts and advice offered.

It's maybe a bit niche to have to factor in an insulin pump when someone is thinking of moving options, but it (and my really good doctors) are not to be taken for granted.

I know I can go to any hospital if I can get there but it simply wouldn't work out to commute down from Newcastle for a morning clinic.

I'm under the pre conception team for women with diabetes at G&T as well at the moment. That's a really long process for me as I'm about two years away from wanting to be pregnant and it's far from certain that I even can. But, if there is even the slimmest chance that I CAN have a child, I want to maximise that.

So, as well as my pump, I want to factor in access to excellent diabetes pregnancy care.

I think we will see more people moving to other cities & the North will grow. If you don’t have family ties & your wages are not loads different I don’t see the benefit of struggling in London. I say this as a Londoner who loves London. Quite a few of my friends have left recently & these are people who can afford 1m houses. But they don’t want the tiny terrace with no off street parking or a long overpriced commute.

What’s wrong with the north, north of England I guess as nothing exists above the border?...

I visited the North once, it was horrible. best avoided, too much genetic inbreeding, no culture, class systems disrespected.

Hahahahahahahahahaha, speakout is the gift that keeps on giving 😂😂😂

For £1000 p/ m you can get a 1 bed flat near Epping station (central line 30-40 mins into central London)

I presumed on reading speakout's posts that she was a northerner trying to deter the riffraff.

Also you can get to guys hospital in 45mins from Epping