To be irritated by the Londoner exodus to my town?

[thesecondnamegame]

I've been priced out of my Greater Manchester town by the London diaspora. Anybody who knows the area will know which town I mean. My tatty council town centre terrace is worth 300k. A load of Londoners came up after the BBC moved to Manchester. Half the kids in my kid's school's parents are from London and they love to make sure you know that. House prices have become ridiculous and are in a different world to the rest of Greater Manchester. It's ridiculous as it used to be a very unremarkable market town (albiet with not much to it) and now it's gone all 'naice' and I'm having to move 10 miles away because it's reaching the surrounding towns and I simply cannot afford to live here and I want to buy a property. It annoys me, I keep imagining somebody who had a London salary and bought a house in London, sold it, and came up here and bought a house 3 times bigger for the same price as their smaller London home. It just seems like they cheated. There are no school places either, because a lot of the Londoner's chose this particular town for the schools. The catchments are bloody tiny, I know somebody who lives in a village about 4 miles away. The schools in this town are the closest schools. No school would take her child and she ended up having to home educate for months.

All my relatives who bought properties or private rented have had to leave, even those who went to uni and got great jobs.

@princessandthedragon

We have 'school wars' here as well, and yes, it is fuelled by those who have moved into the area for the schools and a lot of them came with the BBC whether people like me saying it or not. It really is ridiculous. The school situation in my town is completely unsustainable. If certain family's DC don't manage to scrape the 11 plus then it's all out war for places in the best comps.

Meanwhile, my friend, who lives a bit further out but has the nearest schools in this town, got offered no schools and had to home educate her child for a while.

@StayCalm99 nope

Also it’s interesting that London is always hailed as being so diverse but these ‘London people’ are overwhelmingly white, middle class and privately educated.

And often originally from the Shires (including northern ones), not London. Similar backgrounds to Dorset born and bred, former prep schoolboy Jeremy Corbyn, for example.

Not that their backgrounds mean they're Bad People. It's mixed just like everyone else. Generalisation and lazy stereotyping lead to unnecessary division.

I'm really not sure what the solution is other than building Developments/Estates that are purely 'Social Housing' and not for profit.

So many people of varied circumstances need these homes I don't think it would lead to a form of 'ghetto' - as most Council Estates I've lived in were bloody good places to live.

I agree.

Well you know what OP? The same thing happened in the lovely normal area of London that I grew up in. When all the wanky celebs from up north moved in & out priced the real locals. I'm looking at you Lauren Lavern, Caitlin Moran, Sara Cox 🤷🏼‍♀️

[quote thesecondnamegame]@princessandthedragon

We have 'school wars' here as well, and yes, it is fuelled by those who have moved into the area for the schools and a lot of them came with the BBC whether people like me saying it or not. It really is ridiculous. The school situation in my town is completely unsustainable. If certain family's DC don't manage to scrape the 11 plus then it's all out war for places in the best comps.

Meanwhile, my friend, who lives a bit further out but has the nearest schools in this town, got offered no schools and had to home educate her child for a while.[/quote]
Its been going on for the best part of 20 years! At least!

I'm hunkering down in filthy, overpriced, grotty old London and never leaving. So the pitchfork wavers of Manchester are perfectly safe from my big London money. Can't vouch for my dc though - they might need to earn a living and find somewhere to live that isn't within a few hundred metres of where they were born.

In China you're not actually allowed to just move where you like or where the jobs are - the hukou system acts as a domestic passport to prevent pesky incomers from settling in the popular places. Not sure we'd want something like that.

It will be so funny when their bosses decide it’s time to return to the office...

🙄

Thanks to everybody coming to inform me how lovely their London neighbours are [sceptical] My issue is with a very specific type of privileged person who sees the likes of my town as free fodder, I really do have nothing against you and your neighbours.

Tbf every time there’s a thread on here where someone is trying to find a house in a certain area that they can’t quite afford the advice is always to move out the are. I don’t think people really have much choice, the South East is unaffordable for many young people

It's not "all out war" though, is it? There'd be families in those houses regardless of whether they're from London or Trafford. There would still be demand for the same school places.

I've yet to see war over school places. It's largely out of your hands

Area*

@RedToothBrush It's getting exponentially worse, go figure.

I live on a part of London OP where everyone knows everyone. Yes it’s posh. But hardly anyone was born here. In fact, I only know one person who was born here.

No you don’t get into a state school unless you pay through the nose to live in the catchment area or find Catholicism. It’s a total nightmare. But we don’t blame “incomers.” Nobody owns the place extiu know! Who should we blame for lack of school places? Errr... hang on.,, THAT IS XENOPHOBIA / RACISM ISN’T IT?

My nextdoor neighbour is a well-known BBC news person and her husband also involved in similar. I remember years ago, they were worried they were going to be asked to shift to Manchester. They would not have gone. Even though their house is worth at least £5 million and they could have lived in some kind of ridiculous footballer’s wives scenario up there, it did not appeal. And this lady and her husband are from the north originally. As are many, many people in London of course. It’s a much more transitory way if life and we’re not stick-in-the-muds about change. Thank god. It’s why such stay here. And I’m not even British. You’d hate me even more - a Londoner nowadays AND from the EU no less

No wonder we have Brexit if this is the mentality in certain areas.

My own primary school is now incredibly popular & has a furthest distance offer of about 400 metres. A terraced 3 bed costs 1.2m there.

It's funny how people are only waking up to the issues with the housing market & the inequality now.

@awaketoosoon

Also it’s interesting that London is always hailed as being so diverse but these ‘London people’ are overwhelmingly white, middle class and privately educated.

That's not representative of London at all hence why I questioned.

Less so with Manchester, which is fairly diverse, but some of the other 'locals'. The way they talk about the dreaded incomers, I get the impression they wouldn't be very welcoming to new neighbours who were more representative of Londoners. Forget the different accent. People visibly Not From These Parts.

How does this make me a Brexiteer? That is absolutely hilarious.

I'm about as remain as they come, my area is also incredibly remain.

How does this make me a Brexiteer? That is absolutely hilarious.

You don't seem to like immigration...

At least you have your Hunters wellies to keep your feet dry from the damp @Thecazelets, what with you being privileged and all.

Thanks to everybody coming to inform me how lovely their London neighbours are [sceptical]

More lovely than you, as a neighbour, it seems!

Since so many Londoners are 1st or 2nd gen.

@VioletsandRoses

Tbf every time there’s a thread on here where someone is trying to find a house in a certain area that they can’t quite afford the advice is always to move out the are. I don’t think people really have much choice, the South East is unaffordable for many young people

Yes. Particularly when someone has fallen on hard times - redundancy, disability, domestic abuse, husband left for the OW and not paying for his kids etc, they're told (with little sympathy) to move and to not expect to stay in an area they can't afford. They can't win.

I'm in the shabbier side of the ultra expensive Notting Hill, Portobello area of London. Next to Grenfell Tower. So many council tenants being driven out due to regeneration projects. However o completely get how annoying it must be if the people moving to your town are boasting about how much bang they are getting for their buck uo north. FYI the school place thing is rampant here and you need to live in spitting distance to get into a "good" or "outstanding " state primary or secondary school here.

You do a lot of generalising OP. Londoners all own highly priced property they can sell to inflate prices in other areas. Nowhere is friendly anymore. People talk about welcoming multiculturalism but send their DC to predominantly white private schools. Speaking as a middle class Londoner from a friendly area whose kids went to the multicultural local comp you aren’t describing a world I know. It sounds more like Daily Mail land than the real world.

@thesecondnamegame

Thanks to everybody coming to inform me how lovely their London neighbours are [sceptical] My issue is with a very specific type of privileged person who sees the likes of my town as free fodder, I really do have nothing against you and your neighbours.

You mean middle class professionals.

Who have moved from all over the country. Often via London but not necessarily from London.

As part of gentrification which is something that has happened repeatedly over the centuries, and happens at different rates at different types according to economics and industrial change.

Manchester used to be a lot smaller, with suburbs being farming areas. The locals that lived there gradually moved out as the city grew. In type the city swallowed up surrounding towns and changed their nature.

Its what happens.

Strangely, of the people I know who work for the BBC not one was originally from London. Home counties, Liverpool, Manchester... but not London.

@allawaketoosoon

Brilliant.

'immigration
/ɪmɪˈɡreɪʃn/

noun
the action of coming to live permanently in a foreign country.'

Not what I'm on about.