Londoners moving out to towns - AIBU

[Disgruntledtownie]

I have lived in the same town all my life - great community feel, independent shops etc.

During COVID, we had an absolute influx of people moving out from London which massively drove up prices so locals have had to move away and it’s really changed the whole town.

A lot of the Londoners were campaigning about getting a Pure Gym in the town - one opened, and now our local leisure centre has had to go into liquidation. This is where all the school kids learn to swim, all the teens hang out after school etc and it’s just gone.

An independent family owned shop that has been in our town for over 130 years has had to close as business has dropped.

In the last two years, Gails and a Joe & Juice have opened right next to independent coffee shops - there’s been massive queues outside Gail’s and everyone saying how good it is they can still get their Gail’s fix out of London. But it’s meant the independents have struggled and a few have had to shut.

I totally appreciate that times are tough and spiralling costs and overheads will have impacted these businesses but AIBU to think if you move out of London, you embrace the local shops etc and don’t just change the town into a mini London ??!! It’s just such a shame to see our local community disintegrating around us.

I never really understand these ‘Londoner’ threads. Who cares where people live and who has the right to give people grief if they choose to live in a different area? Should we all be allocated towns/villages and cities at birth and only be able to live in that area?

I’m in the South East but I’m actually from the North East so I don’t ‘belong’ either. Should I be concerned that me moving to the area has contributed to the decline of places like cafes and leisure centres?

Shops and leisure centres are closing everywhere including London. Do you watch the news?!

Indeed I'm in a poor town on the Elizabeth line awful place but the Elizabeth line brought Chinese investment buyers so house are through the roof meaning we look like an affluent area and deprivation allowances have been removed but the same poor people live here looking at empty flats.

I’m pretty sure this is my local town (though I don’t live in it), and it seems bizarre to me that you blame an influx of ‘Londoners’ for the changing nature of the high street.

Unless I’ve wrongly identified the town, it’s only just outside the M25 (and therefore London), so it’s been a prime commuter area for decades. The vast majority of people travel into London to work (at least they did up until COVID) and people have always migrated out here from the city in search of safer, quieter living and more bang for their buck.

I agree that it’s a terrible shame that many independent businesses have been forced to close in recent years, but that’s a result of the pandemic, a difficult economy and the fact they must have been under-supported by local residents in general.

Incomers, regardless of where they’re from, don’t dictate which shops populate the high street, the council do - and it’s the council that charges criminally high business rate and rents, it’s the council that’s relentlessly hiked up parking prices or sold the car parks to private contractors (which is the reason I no longer shop in the town), it’s the council that failed to support long standing independent businesses when they most needed it, and it’s the council that’s failed to prioritise the leisure centre. In the end the only businesses that can afford to take on empty premises are the big chains, so the high street is gradually becoming completely generic. Which is shit, but blaming all this on new people who are trying to make a life here is slightly bizarre.

We've not long had a Gails and Joe and the Juice open in our London suburb. Both in units that were previouslu occupied by independent forced out by rent rises.

I am not sure we can blame Londoners moving to ..... erm London.

NB Gails is dreadful and overpriced.

No you're definitely right OP. Why not build a wall around London and make sure none of us dirty Londoners ever leave?
You do realise the exact same thing has been happening in London FOREVER right? If people are (daring to) move to.your town from London maybe that's because they can't afford to live in London because of the thousands of new people who move here every week - some of them probably even come from town.

Heat the water? What is this that you speak of?

Our local pool is freezing 🤣 kids soon learn to swim though - swim or go blue!

What a lot of nonsense...

First of all people have the right to live wherever they want to.

The ''locals'' don't own a town/village.

It is not exactly healthy for any area anyway to have the same people living there generation after generation with no influx of newcomers....

If you were talking about second/holiday homes you might have a point, but people settling in full time and contributing to the local economy can only be a good thing.

People come to London all the time from other parts of the country to study, work, start businesses, use specialist hospitals and so on and I can't see any issue from people from London doing it the other way around. Or are you suggesting London should also reject anyone who does not have links to the capital?

I moved out of London after 30 years (although I was not born there) and moved to a small seaside town in Kent.

I use independent shops, coffee shops, restaurants and the local market and also use a small independent business that provides pilates classes to do my regular exercise.

Most people in town support local businesses, as long as they offer good service and the items they want, whether they are from London or anywhere else or locals.

The local leisure centre is shabby as hell though and is going to be shut down and a new one built in a new location. Nothing to do with Londoners, the change is being driven by locals who want proper facilities.

It happens everywhere I live in Cheshire and we have had a huge influx of Mancunians as it's cheaper for more house. They are moving back as there's only train an hour , the bus route has been cancelled and no trams. You are completely dependent on car or taxis not much of a night life either but I'm a boring twat so it doesn't bother me.

why do you think they are Londoners? they may have just moved to London for a few years.

The same thing happens in London, many people gentrify a part of it & they prefer the branded bakery that costs 3 times more than then one that's been there for years.

Hmm, I was priced out of London, where I was born and bred because of people from 'towns' and all over the country moving to London over time

Never get threads about that though.

very true

Gosh I am constantly saying the same. The demographic of our very small town, has changed dramatically over the last twenty years and specifically so since covid.
Used to be a rural farming community and other locals. Now it’s full of people with high paid corporate jobs and artistic hobbies, who want to raise children in the countryside and walk their dogs. But actually don’t really understand the countryside. And don’t want the inconvenience of farmers and mud and Tractors etc. The average house price for a 3 bed semi is around £450k. I couldn’t afford to buy the house we live in now.
I must say that individually all these people are really nice. Well brought up children and most also really active in volunteering in all the community stuff.
But it has massively changed the vibe of the town and anyone local or in rural farming professions has no chance at all of renting or buying a house here. It’s been really bad for diversity as well. We actually had more diversity previously. And the public transport is being cut because less people use it due to the demographic.
I know things change but it is a shame that hard working young people are pushed out. The Social housing was all sold under right to buy. And an ex council house here is around £400k

Absolutely true.

I went back to Tooting and Clapham Junction last week.
I grew up in these areas ....my god the shock I encountered.

Tooting market 😮
Junction and Northcott Road....charity shop selling trousers for £90 😥

Didn't hear no Battersea accents either.

Ah is the town called Snobland?

Really great point made by those saying they were priced out of London.

it’s also interesting about the gentrification. And how that pushes people out.

I used to think ‘why don’t the councils make the effort to make all areas nice’ then everywhere would cost the same and it would be more equal. Those who like cities could afford and it those who want countryside could. And no one would need to ‘escape’ from a horrible area. Because they’d all be nice…

buy nothing is that simple of course

Londoner's don't rank Gail's sorry. The coffee there is stingey small and rank. And their hot chocolate is (not envy). As others have said, there wouldn't be a problem if rural homeowners only sold their houses to locals. It's their choice. I will be moving out at some point but I intend to get thoroughly stuck into local life & support local businesses.

I live in London but I think Gail’s is more popular with tourists because it is a bit crap and overpriced. I don’t resent anyone who comes to live in London.

I only tried Gail's once when I went to an exhibition and there was a Gails near by. I thought it woud be nice to buy a fancy sandwich to eat in the nearby park.

They were charging £5 plus for what looked like the sort of little filled snack rolls you get as part of a much larger platter at a lunch buffet.

I went to Pret instead. At least they sell sandwiches big enough to feed an adult human.

That's every day.

OP, people are allowed to move house and to choose which businesses to use. If you were talking about second-homers, fair enough, but people who've moved to your town can use whatever gym they like, same as you.

Seems highly unlikely to me that the only people using the new gym and bakery were newcomers anyway.

I've never heard of Gail's. I used to live in Bromley and work in Shoreditch.
Ah well.

@Chickenly my favourite place in Guildford is Coffee Culture which is a tiny place tucked down next to Bills. It’s been there for over 20 years but it has lovely cakes, friendly staff and it’s reasonably priced.
Thyme for Tea is so nice though! Their brownie was superb too and when he said £4 I said “oh and a tea too” and he went “yes, £4 for tea and cake” and it was the first time since I’ve moved back to the U.K. that something has actually been cheaper than I expected!

Gail’s reminds me of a skit where two people tick off the woes of the world, reminded me of mn

This is more complex than you paint it

The locals will still out number incomers. If things are closing, it will be because locals aren’t using them.

People also move into London from around the UK and the world and price out locals. It’s not a one way street.

I’d be in favour of controlled house pricing so this doesn’t happen - but that means in London as well as anywhere else.

Specifically a pure gym and a local leisure centre are very different beasts. It must be a fairly big town and I think if the LC went under there will be a variety of reasons for that. A lot of LCs are badly run and have shaky finances.

Similarly Gail’s is the world’s most overpriced bakery TM. It might impact on the local bakery’s somewhat, but unless the town has the World’s second most expensive bakery, it’s not likely to put them out of business.

What's going on today? Why are all these threads popping out about Londoners?

I find these threads really unpleasant. Leaving aside the poorly thought out economics of this, there’s an unpleasant overlay of judgment and something like xenophobia.

If people substituted the word “Londoners” for “foreigners”, this thread would be deleted.

I understand that the housing situation must be frustrating (although you must be aware millions of Londoners are also priced out of the housing market?). But it doesn’t give you the right to be bigoted against millions of people purely because they happen to live in the same place.