Have people left London

[exhoecho]

Just started to notice that my part of London is a lot quieter then a week ago. Now obviously this could be because people are staying inside but there's hardly any cars on the road & parking is normally a pain in the arse & I can see about 13 houses from my loft/front/back garden & some of them definitely seem empty, no lights on last night. It's just very quiet & i'm conscious its only my kids you can hear! Where is everyone?

[thecatneuterer]

@PeterPomegranate When you consider the huge numbers of young housesharers there are in London it's not that shocking. They are all in London, from somewhere else, for work or study. They no longer have that work. Many won't be earning to continue paying the rent. And even if that isn't the problem, most wouldn't want to be shut up in a room for months in a house of relative strangers if they could go back to their families instead.

[HeyChief]

I’m in west London and can only think of 1 person who has left london - my friends flat mate who has gone back up north to her parents (big city rather than a rural area). She’s in her 30s. No idea if she went to look after vulnerable family or just because she’d rather be with them.
I know quite a few people with second homes (older generation) and can’t think of anyone who has actually left to go to them. All my neighbours seem to be at home - most with any student children returning.

[PeterPomegranate]

I’m quite shocked that people have left. I know London is ahead but we’re not dropping in the streets. And it’s selfish as pointed out to to go other parts of the country potentially spreading disease and where there are fewer intensive care places.

Round here (outskirts suburban London) it’s quiet but I think people are still here, just not out and about.

[CalmerViolet]

(I. E Hospital beds are for those who need them, wherever they come from)

[CalmerViolet]

There are around 8 million people in London. The numbers who have gone to second homes must be tiny and not remotely enough to affect the numbers of cars on the roads etc. Most Londoners are not loaded and they don't have second homes

Very quiet round me, here in S London, but literally no one I know round us, in the school or local community, has a second home to go to.

But the street is quite of cars, no rat-running, no commuter cars parking and cycling or bussing into the centre.

However I see the red helicopter back and forth, bringing people into our local hospital which also takes complicated and urgent cases from Kent, Sussex and Surrey. Despite this overwhelmed and overcrowded hospital being on the border of the two most highly infected boroughs.

London has locals, too.

[LilyPond2]

I can think of two people I know who have left London. One left (hours before lockdown was announced) to move in with elderly housebound mother. Rented a nearby Airbnb first to quarantine for a fortnight before moving in. Other person is in her eighties and was reluctantly persuaded to move out of her own home to live with another relative because London home shared with granddaughter who is frontline healthcare worker caring for COVID-19 patients. You can't accuse everyone moving out of London of being selfish. People will have moved out for various reasons.

[MajesticWhine]

DD1 came back home to London from uni.
I don't know anyone from my immediate neighbourhood who has left.

[Inkpaperstars]

Never occurred to me to leave London, not that I have anywhere to go. I wouldn't go and stay with my DM because if we did that there would be enough of us there that someone would need to be going to shops whereas without us there she can manage with local deliveries etc. Us going in and out would raise her risk.

Also yes, I feel somewhat better being near major hospitals and the new excel one.

I am in SE London and although I haven't been out enough to really tell, I feel like pretty much everyone is here.

[CokeEnStock]

Staying with family for the duration is maybe fair enough. anyone in Belgium moving to their second home was swiftly sent back.

[MinesaPinot]

I'm in a City law firm. I know of several higher ups who have gone off to second homes and are miffed apparently because there isn't PA support in the office as usual. Tough.

[DailyKegelReminder]

I know 3 students who have moved back here to London the day lockdown was announced, to be with family. I know 1 person who moved to Kent to look after elderly parents a few days before lockdown.


I prefer to be in London so declined the invite from relatives who live in a tiny village.

[SimonJT]

A lot of friends who live in house shares have either moved back in with parents or in with friends.

My boyfriend has moved in with me, his little block is mainly sharers and his housemate said it was virtually empty when I dropped his shopping off.

[okiedokieme]

Like most young adults, my kids came home the week prior to lockdown

[pinkpinecone]

I left with my toddler ahead of lockdown and went to stay with family in the country. We live in a small flat without a garden. If I had a garden in London I would have stayed put. I know quite a few people with young kids who did the same. We are isolating and all food is delivered so haven't been out into the community.

[coachman]

I'm in London. I don't know of a single person who has left, including people with second homes. I do know of families where their children have come back to their homes in London from universities all over the country.

It works both ways. I get a bit fed up of the London bashing on Mumsnet.

[mynamesmrdiggety]

I think most people are young or in shared houses so have gone back to their families to work from home.

[DwayneBenzie]

I live in a pretty mixed area of inner London (no Chelsea style mansions though!).

The students and 20somethings have mostly gone back to their parents’. The Romanian builders up the road have gone home. The Home Counties commuters who usually drive in and park on our road to get a tube into work aren’t around so we have loads of parking. The poshos next door but one took their kids to the grandparents’ place to escape the allegedly impending London lockdown a couple of weeks ago, but we are all taking bets on when they’ll come back. The local shops are all well stocked btw and have been throughout. Life continues fairly normally, albeit quiet, in this bit of London.

[Clymene]

I live on the coast and there are sod all people here. Second home owners haven't come.

[GabsAlot]

Rocket-bored? whats the difference we're all bloody bored silly man

its disgusting what some people who have money think what does and doesnt apply to them

they should be last on the list for beds

[Fifthtimelucky]

I agree.

I'm originally from the West Country (no longer there) but I do think some people who live there are being unnecessarily hostile, especially to those who moved to second homes before lockdown. I understand the fear about local service being overwhelmed of course, but there does seem to be a quite a bit of selfishness too.

We shouldn't forget that the traffic is not all one way. Some of us have done Devon and Cornwall a favour by removing our student children. There will be some students who have returned to their parents' homes in Devon and Cornwall, of course, but I bet both Exeter and Falmouth are much emptier than usual.

[OrangeSamphire]

For anyone wondering why it’s stupid to leave London to go to rural places, here is some good research on critical care bed capacity across the regions. Look at the south west, and what we need to do to cope with our own populations, let alone any influx of second homers and people going to stay with relatives because it’s ‘nicer’ here:

www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/huge-regional-differences-intensive-care-bed-numbers-threaten/amp/

[SirVixofVixHall]

The bed per person ratio in Wales is the lowest in the UK.
So to the pp who asked, no , it isn’t equivalent in Wales anyway. Mil in Powys doesn’t even have a general hospital.

[BelleSausage]

Sorry, entire county. An entire country would be a big area 😂

[ProfessorPollington]

Yes quite a few have. My sister in law's two flatmates both left for the country. We definitely saw a lot of people packing up to leave in the first couple weeks.

[TheVanguardSix]

I'm in West London. All of my neighbours are home. Every one of them.