London exodus??

[Newdonewhugh]

Has anyone else noticed that their Town has a lot of people moving from London?
Are local Town and village FB pages literally have 2/3/4 people a day joining and posting with the likes of “I’m moving to ..... from London next week, can anyone help me with X,Y,Z”
My Sister and others said they’ve noticed it too.
We live in South Coast.
I just wonder what this New World will look like. What will happen to London?

The idea that everyone who commutes into London works in Kings Cross and can just pop off the lovely empty (in the rush hour?!) train and straight into work is bizarre.

If you're fortunate to live near a train station and work right by the other train station, then good for you. If someone works in Putney or Neasden, then they're potentially facing a 30-45 minute jam-packed tube journey on top of whatever the train commute is. It's absurd to say the only way you'd have a 2-hour commute is if you live in York. My temporary "commute" this summer was 90 minutes and that was from one side of London to the other!

@Gbtch

There really is a north south divide. I do not envy you all in the London/ HC rat race. A pity more business doesn’t settle around the country and spread the wealth/ jobs and burden those bring.

You're right. Add in mass council housing with ease of transfer and we might just see a more contented and balanced society - across the UK. Mobility if wanted but not forced. Options for everybody.

hopingforonlychild

But that is £5600 per year. Between the 2 of you that is only £100 per month less than the £8k commute that you seem to think is huge

Add in the cost of your extra mortgage if you need a 3rd bedroom and there isn’t much difference.

Pizza that is why buying near a tube out here in zone 5 is quite important. When we bought in 1990 we were about 3 minutes walk from the tube and my office was the same at the other end - all deliberately done like that (PIcc. line) . House before that was near Met Line tubes at both ends although it did not always work out so easily and this house (bought after I started working from home) is 5 mins to park on a street near the tube and then very short walk but I add 15 mins at this end for all that side of it, then the 35 mins into London and a bit at other end or really 60 minutes door to door in most cases. Even so I prefer the tube to over ground (we have over ground too) - if you move out to where there are only trains sometimes if you miss a train you have to wait a while for the next and you certainly don't get all night tubes (not that at my age I use those!) further out. So the suburbs can be a reasonable compromise - a tube tends to come along soon if you miss one.

the house prices always seem to reflect well all this stuff - how far it is to get into the City whether from Bishop Auckland where my father grew up or Newcastle where I was born on a pretty nice road near the centre or down here in London. Even when I saw recently a lovely tiny flat for £375k in London for my son - the reason? £8000 a year service charges so no one is touching them with a barge pole.

We are moving out of Sydney and keeping our flat here for our daughter to live in. The area we are moving to has seen prices surge.

There really is a north south divide. I do not envy you all in the London/ HC rat race. A pity more business doesn’t settle around the country and spread the wealth/ jobs and burden those bring

This is one reason WFH is good - it provides more flexibility to both employers and employees. If you only need to go into the office weekly/fortnightly/monthly/the odd meeting, you can live much further away.

The idea that everyone who commutes into London works in Kings Cross and can just pop off the lovely empty (in the rush hour?!) train and straight into work is bizarre

I know they're building up the Knowledge Quarter near Kings Cross but I would have thought most people work elsewhere in London and have a walk or tube ride once they arrive. I used to commute to Waterloo and walk 20 minutes from there, but DH has to get the tube (though the Waterloo & City line isn't running currently, so when he does go into the office he has a 45 minute walk each way).

I know several people doing this in London: the parents moving to the countryside and leaving the house with the dc .

Living in the Home Counties is my idea of hell.

london zone 5 suburb here with no tube... over line train 20 minutes to Victoria or 30 minutes to Blackfriars
HC living at a discount in terms of rail fares, comparable house price and commute times
got the same characterless town centre as 99% of UK's high streets
got the green belt to take weekend walks
got neighbouring HC to trespass within a short drive

we dream of moving out of London one day. Even if we are WFH daily now, our jobs are still tied to London. we will move out of London someday though, maybe when we're 50

@Oliversmumsarmy well my service charges also include a sink fund so any repairs to the roof and exterior repairs- I don't need to budget for. If I owned my own FH property, I need to idget for exterior repairs. I also don't run a car, which I probably need in Hitchin..
Like people have said, it depends on your lifestyle. Like other PP said it really depends on your lifestyle. Also depends on your risk appetite. I value having the extra money to save. I don't even have any children yet and am also 28 so could be a good while before a kid is in the picture. We shall see but a lot can change in 10 years and that's why I thought it was premature to move out to the HC on the basis of children I don't even have yet and on the basis I can never afford what I want in z3 when DH and I have only been working for less than 10 years.

@Oliversmumsarmy also Hitchin to London Thameslink/blackfriads is now £4500. So not £8k per annum but £9k! When I checked a year ago, I don't even remember it being so much.

My service charges have been the same for the past 5 years. Tfl fares have increased, but as I live in z3, the percentage increase is tiny in £ terms. Which is why a lot of people in HC (esp women on smaller salaries after children are born) actively make it a mission to find a job outside London or wfh cos it just makes financial sense to spend £4500 less per annum. Which is all fine but I don't like the idea that you would be motivated to find a new job on the basis of the cost of your commute, it probably does limit your options long term.

My mum lived in a “rival” town to Hitchin. The kids would shout “Go to ‘Itchen and come back scratchin’ ! “ when they encountered the enemy. I wonder if this quaint custom persists?!

@Oliversmumsarmy

Until we get part time rail season tickets, this is going to be an issue. I would say that unless both parents earn a lot, or 1 parent is prepared to be more flexible about work (local work or wfh), its a risk to move to HC.

bettertransport.org.uk/blog/rail/lack-part-time-tickets-pricing-parents-out-careers

Whilst I was on maternity leave we moved back out to Kent, after 20 years in London, for a chance to get a decent step on the housing ladder. When it was time to return to work, I was struck by the lack of flexible season tickets, and the penalty this imposed on part time and flexible workers. Commuting from Ashford, and forced on to the high speed train due to unfavourable timetabling, I was faced with the choice of buying peak time returns, which cost around 50% extra for each journey, or shelling out over £6000 for an annual season ticket which I would only use 3 times a week.

My employer, like so many others, was open to flexible work patterns, but the train company I relied upon did not offer any options for commuters in my position, not even a half-hearted scheme purporting to support part time workers which I have seen elsewhere. As a result, my travel costs were disproportionately high in relation to my pro-rata’ed wage, which already is cushioning childcare costs. In the end, I was lucky enough that my employer and I came to an agreement where I mainly work from home to get around the ridiculous costs of commuting part-time. I very much appreciated no longer having to pay such high travel costs, but I missed seeing my colleagues and being a part of office life.

Since moving out of London, I have had many conversations with friends who have decided not to return to work, or changed their career path to find a local job. Parents who want to work part time or flexibly are often already struggling with childcare costs, and higher ticket prices for commuting part time can be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. Anecdotally I was struck by the absence of women on my commute into London and felt that on a wider scale, the lack of affordable flexible ticket options was having a negative impact on talent, diversity and economic contribution. We are literally being priced out of our careers. Of course it’s not just working parents or carers who want to or need to work flexibly, but we are disproportionately impacted.

They will soon get bored and come back

Before kids I lived in a tiny one bedroom central London flat, which I loved because it was within walking distance of everything - theatres, museums, concerts, art galleries, history, architecture, parks. There was no way we could afford even one extra bedroom in that area, so we compromised and moved out to Zone 5, which has been great for raising kids - lots of amenities, family-friendly atmosphere, multicultural, lots of shops, restaurants, cinemas, and still only 30-40 mins tube ride from the city centre.

Now my youngest will be off to uni in a couple of years, I'm looking forward to moving back to the city centre at some point in the next 5 years or so. I want my older years to be spent around all of the cultural amenities that will keep my mind buzzing. I know people who have made the move to smaller towns or villages and enjoyed it. Good luck to them if that's what makes them happy, but I find it strange that some people don't seem to understand the appeal of a small flat close to the endless cultural amenities of a big city.

@kateguide
Clearly the people you are writing about who moved have quite a lot of money to be able to buy the properties you suggest - a farmhouse with 23 acres or a property in Corwall.

I hardly think that a £15k saving would seriously encourage them to do this, it certainly wouldn't cover the expenses of moving let alone give them extra capital. And commuting from Cornwall, even very occasionally, is both hideously expensive and very time consuming - believe me I've known people who have done it.
I agree with others who have written about moving from London, particularly to more rural or costal areas. They may be lovely in the summer but not so great in the winter. Public transport is often limited, there's not much to do (think bored teenagers or adults who like the occasional trip to a gallery, theatre or vaguely cultural activity).
A large town or city outside the capital is, of course, a different story - but personally I think that they still lack much of what London has to offer.

Like Asan we found zone 5 outer London (where I still live) is a good compromise but there are no righto r wrong answers. Just don't rush to buy if you aren't sure - rent first just in case you hate the country or hate moving right back to the centre of London.

At least out here we have lots of NHS dentists, lots of doctors, hospitals including in Central London whereas going a lot further away it may not be so good for that and services you might need when you get very old. Also people to help you can be easier to find here in outer London from work men to plumbers, cleaners to in -home carers and babysitters. Country areas do not always have quite so many people although that is part of the appeal - no one around. We had 17m fewer people than now in the UK when I was born and it was better - more space, more peace.

I find it strange that some people don't seem to understand the appeal of a small flat close to the endless cultural amenities of a big city

I completely understand it but I’d want it as well as my bucolic life. My commuting days were my happiest. I came out of my front door in the morning and looked at cows’ heads over the gate opposite. An hour later I was in the buzz of the city. Before lockdown I was in London a couple of days every month and I miss my fix desperately. I never want to live there permanently.

There really is a north south divide. I do not envy you all in the London/ HC rat race. A pity more business doesn’t settle around the country and spread the wealth/ jobs and burden those bring

Yes, that's how it used to be before the centralisation of everything into London. Banks, insurers, professional firms, etc used to have regional offices and even city/town offices. That meant "professionals" could live out in the regions all over the UK and still be able to get a good job with a large employer. London Centric firms have really screwed the regions, smaller cities and towns by sucking all the professional jobs away and leaving a vacuum behind.

Possibly it's the high property prices, the very high rental prices, thehot summers andwet winters, lock down, very bad air quality, and so on, which is motivating the move out of London

Tbf sweaty hot London summers make me dream of a coastal move.

When we are no in a pandemic, Londoners usually head for the coast to have a break. Kent and Sussex are within easy reach by car or train. However there are lots of lovely, cool, green spaces in and around London (I am in zone 4).

Fair does, London has lovely parks.

@jessstan1 hence why I don't go because of the traffic & the packed beaches when you arrive!