People who moved out of London/ SE during 2020/21

[escapethecountry]

AIBU to think that there are quite a lot of people who are now regretting their decision to move out of London/ SE in the last couple of years? There seem to have been lots of office workers who were able to WFH who took the decision to move away, either to enjoy a larger house/ better quality of life or because they thought WFH would be permanent. I know a couple of families who moved away and are now considering moving back already. Have others moved/ know others who have moved and are now considering going back?

I know (of) numerous London families/couples/individuals who moved to places like Leicestershire, Bristol, Wales. I don’t think there are any regrets. They picked wisely in terms of amenities and schools.

I’m not hearing about employers insisting on employees coming in more than 1 or 2 days per week either. If it’s a candidates’ market as I’m hearing, employers would be wise to allow the hybrid model with emphasis on wfh I think. Assuming it’s viable of course!

Major events like pandemics and wars change things. It’s inevitable. Employers who rail against social change will lose staff.

@Getoff I've lived in London all my life & generally allow at least 50mins to get anywhere central. The walking, waiting, crowds, traffic slow everything down.

@DiddyHeck

Londoner here, I have no idea where you lived in London. I dont think its a shithole at all. I live in a beautiful leafy green part of London. Lovely people, polite and nice. Lovely little village, nice big park, I am surrounded by fantastic places to eat and drink. Id never be bored of living here

It's pure ignorance mostly. Some people really don't get out and about much so they think the world is as it's portrayed in the tabloids or on the TV.

You are right. My friend moved to Portsmouth mainly because of the house prices, she bough a bigger cheaper place there. But she is bored there. Not much to do apart from going on long walks. And not many good restaurants on her doorstep either.

I dont think its a shithole at all. I live in a beautiful leafy green part of London. Lovely people, polite and nice. Lovely little village, nice big park, I am surrounded by fantastic places to eat and drink

London is absolutely not a shithole & I live somewhere similar to the above but I don't think it's particularly representative of London in general. It's become much less diverse in every way since I was a child.

@cherrytopcake I’m enjoying the irony of you calling other people rude

I know people who left during lockdown- one has already come back, one is pleased with the move but baffled by the fact she’s now expected back in the office and has a huge commute, two very happy- one of these was planning to move out anyway and just brought her plans forward by a few years.

@Getoff one thing I notice on MNs a lot is the idea of a long commute to secondary is abhorrent. It was completely normal for me & everyone else I knew to travel & cross into other boroughs for secondary.

How many people have gone back to 5 days in the office? I would say that's unusual.

LOLing here about the idea of a “leafy village” in London! There are some great things about living in London but leafy villages are not one of them, unless you’re an estate agent!

No.
My friends did this - 3 families - left central London. None of them had a garden and lockdown made them realise they wanted a life with a garden and something around them other than concrete. They also wanted to grow food and have a house with a chimney.
Their children are thriving, Where we live, children still play out together and everyone in the community watches out for them. It's a different place and a different time.. Wonderful.

I lived in London back in the early 90s. Great times then. I went back to work for a year in 2017 and couldn''t believe how everything had changed for the worst.

To the pp saying they now live in the south west but commute into London - how much do you now pay for train fares?? The length of time commuting may not be much different but the price difference of train vs tube (even from zone 6 to 1) is staggering.

I still need to be in the office 3x per week, but can’t move out of London because the cost of travel from the Home Counties would be ridiculous. At the moment I pay £5 a day for my tube journey on the days I’m in the office. Some commutes by train would cost an extra £300 a month, which would pretty much offset any savings you’d make from living outside London!

LOLing here about the idea of a “leafy village” in London! There are some great things about living in London but leafy villages are not one of them, unless you’re an estate agent!

Some parts of London can be very different from your experience of other parts. I don't know about leafy villages, but there are probably quite a few properties where the view from you window is trees rather than buildings. (The foliage may be obscuring buildings that are quite near.)

I had to fly from London City airport for work once, I was amazed as the plane wheeled over North London to see a whole suburb where nearly every house appeared to have an outdoor swimming pool. I had no idea that lifestyles like this even existed in the UK. (Swimming pools can be normal middle-class luxuries in certain warm countries, but give the UK climate and cost of land, I assumed that here they would be confined to mansions or rural locations.)

@Ace56 it's not about saving money though. It's about quality of life. I'm zone 6 and my travel is about £13 a day, not that I've been to the office since Feb 2020. I'm currently pregnant and I don't plan on returning more than 1 day a week. Luckily my particular job at my particular level is in high demand, so I can afford to be picky if my current employer isn't flexible.

@Poetrypatty

You are joking. London is a violent, dirty, expensive shithole with a mostly transient population due to unaffordable housing and getting worse every year. Imagine what London is going to be like in 10-20 years!

I always think it bizarre that on MN people think it's fair game to be rude about London, yet if the same was said about any other area of the country, people would be up in arms!

Agreed. I've lived here 25 years being originally from the North/Midlands. Other than the cost of everything being higher, people are just as friendly if not friendly than elsewhere and it's no dirtier than anywhere else I've lived. There is more crime in certain parts but again it's such a big place with so many people it is going to be. I'd find it hard to live anywhere else (I'm also not super rich which is another thing which non Londoners like to say about Londoners)

LOLing here about the idea of a “leafy village” in London! There are some great things about living in London but leafy villages are not one of them, unless you’re an estate agent!

There are villagey places within London though eg Dulwich, Hampstead, Wimbledon, Barnes, Highgate.

Saying london is dirty violent rude etc is as stupid as saying its grim up north, both based on ignorance

I moved from London last year. Best thing I ever did. I'm 90% WFH, my 3 days per month commuting are totally worth it - 1.5 hours each way instead of 45 mins each way every day, what's not to love? The "you must regrets it haha you have to go back to the office" is not only wrong but also really shit to peddle out. Massively smacks of sour grapes and bitterness.

I'm happy in my bigger, cheaper house, with woodland and forests on my doorstep, being 45 mins from sone of the best beaches in the UK, closer to family and with cheaper childcare and better schools, thanks OP!!!

The gorgeous green villagey places in London are breathtakingly pricey though. I live in london and admit I don't like it either but those places are the exception.

OP I am puzzled by the post too, why do you think that?

Oh and also - I'm 40 mins from central London, so can still enjoy the city I loved in for 37 years as much as I want!!

There are a lot of these threads on here.

Ohhh, aren't people silly for thinking they can change their lives and not be chained to 40 hrs p.w. in the office plus another 15-20 commuting! They're not living in the real world and they'll get sacked/their jobs will be outsourced to India/they'll be passed over for promotion 4evah unless they knuckle under, hahaha!

Why should they get to live a nice cushy life WFH when warehouse workers/delivery drivers can't? (NHS workers and teachers mostly can't WFH either, but we won't mention them so much because NHS is a bit, erm, emotive when you're peddling a narrative about forcing people back into confined spaces and putting them at risk of illness because my pension which is heavily based on UK commerical property is falling off a cliff, and teachers are workshy snowflakes hated on MN. We'll concentrate on minimum-wage/zero-hours contract workers, that never fails to induce guilt in would-be escapees. Yeah, check your privilege! You are outsourcing your risks, you featherbedded Boden-wearers!)

Oh, and the provinces are boring with no cultural life and full of racists, you'll regret moving there, you snowflakes!

Yeah, heard it all before.

@Heronwatcher

LOLing here about the idea of a “leafy village” in London! There are some great things about living in London but leafy villages are not one of them, unless you’re an estate agent!

London has more trees than people, that is a fact. Camden and Croydon in London are among the top 20 places in England and Wales with the most trees. And yes, I do live in a beautiful part of London with lots of trees and its a joy to walk under them everyday when I walk out of my home. I also work in London. Love London

The gorgeous green villagey places in London are breathtakingly pricey though

Yes very true. What I don't get is why can't people just live and let live. If people have moved out of London and love it good on them. Why not leave alone those that still live here without people having to go on about how crap it is.

@Getoff I totally agree that there are some fantastic places to live in London but in order to live in one of the “villages” one usually has to have at least one of the family with a job in the city and over £1 million to spend on a house, which is not indicative of a normal village! Plus all it normally means is that there’s a few “I saw you coming” type shops and a Starbucks on the high street and the chicken and betting shops have been pushed onto the main road 5 minutes away!

@Heronwatcher

LOLing here about the idea of a “leafy village” in London! There are some great things about living in London but leafy villages are not one of them, unless you’re an estate agent!

This just tells me most posters don't have enough money to live in these parts of London.

@lonelyapple

You are joking. London is a violent, dirty, expensive shithole with a mostly transient population due to unaffordable housing and getting worse every year. Imagine what London is going to be like in 10-20 years!

It's ridiculous to ignore all the good things about living in London. I have family members there who have creative low paid jobs. They have made a deliberate decision to raise their children in a shoe box, a bit like you would in Paris, and they've been very energetic about signing up their DC to every museum workshop, free music session, free sponsored activity and they could have written a book about how to live in London on a budget and know all the parks like the back of their hand. They are out every day doing something interesting and they are as slim as whippets from walking everywhere. They have to be very self disciplined about outgoings, and the lack space isn't easy, but the DC attend top rated comprehensive schools and one is a member of a highly regarded youth orchestra. They have managed to give their DC an amazing life this way. London is not all bad and it's ridiculous to suggest otherwise.

Living in London has its downsides (especially if you're on a lower income) but it's also one of the few places in the UK where you can live a car-free lifestyle and not feel like you're missing out.