To relocate from the south east up north??

[BadgerLovesMash]

Just to start I have never moved away from where I grew up so this would be huge!! But now after having our landlord decide to sell our home again (5th time in 12 years this has happened to us!) We are seriously considering moving somewhere cheaper. But some things making me wonder whether we should.

We currently live just outside of Brighton so are very used to easy and cheap public transport which is vital as we don't drive.

Our daughters are 14 and 10, so 1 heading into GCSE years and the other just about to start secondary school.

We have a good support network of friends and family here. All the girls friends are here.

However we are both on minimum wage. DH works for a company that would let him change locations. I work in childcare so could find another job in that field (I was looking to change anyway as no longer need term time once dd2 starts secondary and theres no chance of increased hours where i am) so financially we would be significantly better off.

For reference our current rent for a 3 bed is £1500 per month and this is cheap, others in this area are closer to £1800. I was looking at Grimsby and for a similar sized 3 bed it is £515. But that is 5hrs on the train from here!

So has anyone done this and what are the pros and cons?

Oh and this is all quite outing if you know me! 🤣

Maybe we get sick of reading all the utter shite about how grim our lives are, so shove the stick up your own arse

But this doesn’t really mean North/South does it? It’s talking about the SE and London against the rest of the UK. So ‘North’ includes the SW and Midlands, Wales and Scotland. Broad trends also don’t negate the fact that you have, for example, Harrogate in the north and Gillingham in the south east. People often don’t view where they live through a wider lens so living somewhere like I do (in the north, tripping over organic bakeries and posh clothes shops) doesn’t cause me to identify with the macro economics of the part of England north of Sheffield. You can and do experience deprivation and wealth all over the place.

Calling people dicks is, however, not helpful to any discussion.

In many of those place the OP would be paying a similar amount of money for a house though and the salaries may be less.

I really don't think anyone in the SW would view themselves as North! joking for the humourless
There are very affluent areas of the SW and then there is Cornwall😬

Of course it's a general term but tripping over organic bakeries is hardly going to narrow what is a real and unfair divide.
You can't have it both ways .
.

I have lived there and I did love it for a long time but the crime just got me down in the end. I know there are nice areas but there are more bad ones.

So there is no crime ,in the south?
None whatsoever righto🙄

I’ve lived in Yorkshire, Lancashire, London and Sussex. They all have positives and negatives.
Yorkshire is drier than Lancashire for the most part, when I moved north, Spring tended to arrive around a month later and autumn a month earlier than in Sussex. Public transport is good in the metropolitan areas, not good outside.
Depending on your hobbies and activities, there’s a lot of choice.
If an area is cheap, it’s for a reason and there are many cheap areas you wouldn’t want to live or raise children in. Poverty and generations of underinvestment and unemployment have left pockets of deprivation that have impacted on welfare crime levels.The lovely areas, and there are many, are not cheap.
I moved from the SE to the NW and moved back when I had children.The culture is very different, there are prejudices you might not be aware of that become wearing after a decade of jibes and your children may not enjoy having the piss taken out of them at school.
It depends hugely on where you choose to settle, but I wouldn’t move with teenagers.

What both ways? I was pointing out that the study linked did indeed class all the UK outside London and the SE as ‘North’. Of course the people of the SW don’t view themselves as Northerners!

There is broad economic disparity between parts of the UK. I don’t think most people would argue. But I was saying that most of us don’t view where we live in a broad context. People saying ‘the North’ is deprived/full of bad areas/low standard of living based on the fact that overall there are worse economic conditions outside the SE are not going to win the hearts of the many many people who live in the various areas in which those factors are not particularly evident. Nor is it actually
fair or accurate to talk about The North as a monolith.

Narrowing the gap is vital to our future success as a nation IMO but countering the narrative that the North of England is a bleak depressing wasteland isn’t going to stop that happening. Let people have pride in where they live.

Was just going to say the same 😂😂

No longer having to go up North is one of the many benefits of my divorce.

See I think it depends what you consider the north....places like Liverpool and Manchester aren't north to many of us lol

In all honesty I saw far more deprivation in London than I ever have up here. Its a different world. Some people must agree as places in the north keep getting voted the best places to live in the country.

People saying ‘the North’ is deprived/full of bad areas/low standard of living based on the fact that overall there are worse economic conditions outside the SE are not going to win the hearts of the many many people who live in the various areas in which those factors are not particularly evident.

That's just like putting blinkers on though.
Ok let's ignore the reality for many many people cos I'm alright Jack/ even if I'm not I won't admit it and I would rather have false pride than actually improve anything.

You just couldn't make it up!

But in the context of someone thinking of moving, there is no need to look at the broader situation! It’s literally about individual places and what they are like to live in, which can vary within a few miles. Very much as they do in the south. That’s the point of this thread. Not to talk about broader economic factors. Posters saying ‘the North’ is grim/poor/deprived are not going to reflect the reality of the many people who live in places where that is not the case.

You can be fully aware of the macro economics at play, and indeed professionally engaged in addressing them (for example!) but still be able to say that you live in a lovely part of the country to someone thinking of moving there. And not get drowned out by people who know very little about where you live saying that because it is cheaper than parts of the south that it must be a shit hole.

FWIW my kids are at a far better school than the ones local to me when I lived in the south (and I didn’t need to buy a house 200m from the school to get them in), crime levels are lower, the standard of living feels better, and the cost of housing is lower. None of that negates poverty in other parts of the north but I am allowed to love where I live regardless.

Of course there’s crime in the south. London in particular.
But have a google, the top 5 areas for crime are all in the north. Violent crime in particular. Cleveland, West Yorkshire, Greater Manchester…
It depends which areas you’re comparing, but Burgess Hill compared with Hull or Bradford or Oldham?

👏👏👏👏👏

Of course you are but we were discussing house prices and why they were lower-the whole point of the thread was Op wanted cheaper rent!
PP got told they were a dick for suggesting it was for a good reason.
The reality is Op is paying expensive rent but would likely pay a similar amount if she moved to an area in the North with similar transport links, amenities etc to Brighton.
No doubt Organic bakeries abound!
Climate would not be as nice though

It's not a crime to say cheap rent = not such a nice area.

I am from the NE and live in London. Move - there is nothing wrong with areas North and loads of great places there. If you don't drive and refuse to learn then you will need to be in a City such as Manchester, Leeds, York, Newcastle for example.

But it wouldn’t be true to say that cheaper rents than Brighton = dodgy area. Plenty of nice parts of the north (and also other parts of the UK) are cheaper than Brighton. Rent where I live is cheaper than Brighton. Rent in Harrogate is cheaper than Brighton.

I totally agree that cheap rent isn’t a goal in and of itself. You really need to look at a whole area. Grimsby is really not somewhere I would want to live. But it’s also not true to say that rents in nice bits of the country are all as high as Brighton. And that includes perfectly safe parts of major cities.

If you don’t have much money, you’ll as good as be moving to another country because going south by public transport costs more than it costs to fly abroad.

Heating will cost more. Spring comes much later.

The NE is a beautiful area, with wonderful people, but not as cosmopolitan and buzzing as Brighton. They are worlds away.

We are thinking the same. We have family link in NE but from what I have been told it's not great there, but it is very, very cheap to rent and you can buy a 3 bed house for 100k.

We are looking at Midlands instead. As it's a bit to far for us.

Some areas in westcountry can be reasonable.

By the way, at the moment a lot of people are struggling to sell their properties. Unless your landlord is willing to cheaply for a quick sale, you might end up being able to stay!

Heating will cost more. Spring comes much later.

Bit of an exaggeration imo. When we moved to Cumbria from the SE I compared the weather stats. The temperature across the year was barely different at all, but the rainfall was more than double . Anecdotal I know, but I looked at today's temperatures here and back where we lived before, and it's a couple of degrees warmer here. My mother (who's obsessed with the weather ) went on and on when we moved about how she'd have to bring her thermals. You really don't. You just need a good waterproof and risk developing webbed feet.

That's just like putting blinkers on though.Ok let's ignore the reality for many many people cos I'm alright Jack/ even if I'm not I won't admit it and I would rather have false pride than actually improve anything.

But in the context of this thread, it is a bit dickish to make blanket statements about the north being crap, implying that there's no point in moving north and that it's cheaper because it's shit. The OP isn't looking to move to the whole north. So why deliberately put her off with comments like 'It's cheap for a reason' when there are no doubt places she might like and be able to afford?

Of course there is. Where did I say there was no crime in the south?
I was giving my opinion and experience of living somewhere. I'm not talking out of my arse. I've lived all over the UK and overseas and never been burgled (twice), street robbed and had my car stolen twice (different cars and locations) in any other city. Sorry if you don't like it but it's the truth. I'm from the north so don't pipe up with this north/south thing.

Through work I have lived in Kent, Manchester, Warwickshire, Lancashire and now Lincolnshire. I'm originally from the North East and would never move back. I lived in a lovely village in Northumberland but really don't like Newcastle etc. I liked Kent but it was v expensive. Warwickshire in parts was nice and not quite as expensive. Hated living in Lancashire- I lived in two separate areas and found it incredibly depressing and not great.Manchester was ok.
I love living in Lincolnshire. We were able to buy our own home here in a really nice area for a fraction of the price of some of my colleagues elsewhere in the country. I used to work in Grimsby and it has nice houses and a few ok areas but overall I wouldn't live there. There are many nice areas outside of Grimsby which are nice and good value for money. Lincolnshire also have good schools although transport links aren't great