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?

[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.

[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.

[CokeEnStock]

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

[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.

[MajesticWhine]

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

[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.

[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.

[CalmerViolet]

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

[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.

[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.

[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.