Looking to move to a car / motorbike friendly area
Discussion
I’m planning on moving homes and need some suggestions on where to start looking. I’m unlucky enough to live in central London but lucky enough to work from home so can literally be anywhere in the UK! I’m not too fussed and would even consider Isle of Man...but would prefer anything within a few hours of the M25, or even somewhere specific in Greater London itself of course.
As you can imagine living in central London as a car / bike lover doesn’t work out great and I’ve had enough with TfL, Boris, Khan, and the useless councils making it hell tbh! Thank you!
As you can imagine living in central London as a car / bike lover doesn’t work out great and I’ve had enough with TfL, Boris, Khan, and the useless councils making it hell tbh! Thank you!
kfest is unreal in London - I’ve lived here all my life but owning a car is just becoming torrid. None of my London friends have owned cars, until COVID, and now they want to escape.
I would avoid the Home Counties/South unless you’re an early riser or prefer the bike. Traffic volumes mean the open road is a fairly rare thing, and more and more people seem to be driving under the speed limit.
It definitely has its benefits, easy access to major airports, London, motorways and the south coast, but you really need to head North of London for open roads.
I would avoid the Home Counties/South unless you’re an early riser or prefer the bike. Traffic volumes mean the open road is a fairly rare thing, and more and more people seem to be driving under the speed limit.
It definitely has its benefits, easy access to major airports, London, motorways and the south coast, but you really need to head North of London for open roads.
North Yorkshire / Northumberland if you want space and bigger house, etc. Depends what else you need and how deep into the countryside you want to go.
York is only 1hr45 to London and is a very pleasant city (if a little toursity). Bad for cars in the centre but nice towns and villages in the surrounds.
Yorkshire Dales is nice but can be expensive.
The corridor out towards Bath is nice but not cheap.
Really depends on the balance of what you need nearby, budget and how much house you want. City, town, village, etc?
York is only 1hr45 to London and is a very pleasant city (if a little toursity). Bad for cars in the centre but nice towns and villages in the surrounds.
Yorkshire Dales is nice but can be expensive.
The corridor out towards Bath is nice but not cheap.
Really depends on the balance of what you need nearby, budget and how much house you want. City, town, village, etc?
vaud said:
Depends on the sector. I think the balance will fundamentally shift, yes.
Lots of CFOs thinking 50% capacity could work and the savings on real estate are significant.
Also companies looking to have smaller hub offices rather than a concentration in London.
Yeah, so is our company. However there seems to be an expectation to keep London salaries, even in a company that has regional salary banding. I know a chap that decided to buy a house in Dorset because of all of this, but is arguing to keep his London banding rather than Bristol (and the inevitable remote worker salary banding).Lots of CFOs thinking 50% capacity could work and the savings on real estate are significant.
Also companies looking to have smaller hub offices rather than a concentration in London.
Tbh, regardless of cars, get out of London!
We moved from Zone 4, to Zone 6 (wanted to move further but had other considerations) and it made a world of difference. I can't imagine what bliss it would be to live somewhere outside of the M25. Not can I imagine what hell it would be to live any closer than zone 4! My God.
Its amazing the effect of moving to an area with, only a slightly, lower population density, which in turn means less traffic lights (in fact, hardly any) and a few less road calming measures. The result is less than half the traffic.
We moved from Zone 4, to Zone 6 (wanted to move further but had other considerations) and it made a world of difference. I can't imagine what bliss it would be to live somewhere outside of the M25. Not can I imagine what hell it would be to live any closer than zone 4! My God.
Its amazing the effect of moving to an area with, only a slightly, lower population density, which in turn means less traffic lights (in fact, hardly any) and a few less road calming measures. The result is less than half the traffic.
Killboy said:
Are people really that sure the life is moving to more remote/WFH in the future? Long after the dust has settled on COVID?
The appetite is there. But unfortunately, we have built an economy on buying £5 coffees, and £7 sandwiches, so I'm sure there will be some massive corporate push back, which in turn means lots of Governmental pushback. Its a massive shame as wfh could open doors to better local economies and scrappage of HS2. I fear wfh wont take off like it should, but not because it doesn't work.
Killboy said:
Are people really that sure the life is moving to more remote/WFH in the future? Long after the dust has settled on COVID?
My company certainly is, there's a whole new scheme afoot. They were pretty cool about it before (I only came to the office five days up until March for example) but they're really rolling it out now. An extract from an email from our CEO yesterday "Clearly some of you may want to return to the office sooner depending on your personal circumstances and how you’ve found working at home. This is something you can discuss with your manager and together decide what’s best. However, the majority of office based roles can be done efficiently at home and you’ve proved that over the last few months."As to southerners moving up to country locations/buying bigger properties up north, er please no. Last thing we want are people driving up house prices here and the greed-fest of the south east spreading.
I've been working in consultancy for many years (I'm a practice manager with a well-known IT consultancy). Our pre-Covid approach was simple: work from home unless your client insists on you being on-site. Come in to our offices when you must, but meet virtually if you can. Our post-Covid approach is even simpler: any activity requiring you to travel requires director-level approval.
We will relax the travel approval process at some point if / when Covid becomes less of an issue. However, we'll retain a strong bias to working from home as far as possible for anyone who wants to.
I live in a very rural part of Shropshire - Euston is 3 hours by train, or I can drive to Hillingdon Tube in 2.5 hours without risking my licence. There's really no point in living further south, and where I live it's possible to buy a 5 / 6 bedroom house with 1 - 2 acres of land (and garage space for a few toys) for about the same price as a one-bed flat in Zone 1.
We will relax the travel approval process at some point if / when Covid becomes less of an issue. However, we'll retain a strong bias to working from home as far as possible for anyone who wants to.
I live in a very rural part of Shropshire - Euston is 3 hours by train, or I can drive to Hillingdon Tube in 2.5 hours without risking my licence. There's really no point in living further south, and where I live it's possible to buy a 5 / 6 bedroom house with 1 - 2 acres of land (and garage space for a few toys) for about the same price as a one-bed flat in Zone 1.
tejr said:
The appetite is there. But unfortunately, we have built an economy on buying £5 coffees, and £7 sandwiches, so I'm sure there will be some massive corporate push back, which in turn means lots of Governmental pushback. Its a massive shame as wfh could open doors to better local economies and scrappage of HS2.
I fear wfh wont take off like it should, but not because it doesn't work.
I always knew you liked the finer things in life I fear wfh wont take off like it should, but not because it doesn't work.
It would be interesting to see if the government actually reviewed the business case for HS2 after all this. I mean, I get the whole 'invest in infrastructure' after a economic dip so that we invest in our country and people, but this government seems terrible at revisiting business cases and carrying on regardless. At least they binned that crappy track and trace app. I'd love to see a FOI on the money lost on that.
Back OT.....I reckon you need to consider not putting all your eggs in one basket and stick along the M4 corridor. Hampshire has some excellent roads, as does Wilts and you can be in Wales in 45 mins.
Tell you what noob, if you post your budget, we'll post back what's available in our area so you can see what you LondON money gets you
Edited by TimmyMallett on Thursday 10th September 09:07
James-m5qjf said:
None of my London friends have owned cars, until COVID, and now they want to escape.
Indeed. Most of the COVID related obstacles to cars are to mitigate everyone preferring to drive now.As seen in the other threads the argument that you don't need to drive in London however valid, forgets the people who like to drive and conflates them with the lazy. This is a car forum and few here have a 1L Micra to purely drive the few miles to work.
glenrobbo said:
You need to move north a little bit...
/Photo credit Get Carter
Definitely. /Photo credit Get Carter
I have flat in Canary Wharf and a house in the Yorkshire Dales.
Given up on car ownership in London, it is just pointless, cannot drive aboove 30, cannot park when you get there and taxed to hell.
Northern roads are open, often empty, you have freedom to drive where you want and fresh air along the way.
Get yourself within easy transport of York and a train will have you in London within two hours.
Plenty of bike clubs and ride outs every sunday.
Just be careful as some of the better roads are heavily policed these days.
Did the evo triangle (well a bit of it) at the weekend and there were several police cars plus average speed.
Cat and fiddle the same.
The dales is nice, not bad price wise and has reasonable transport links.
The roads are busy and well policed during the day but I have a couple of routes I take usually on a Saturday night after 10pm and they are empty and can make a bit more progress.
How about another option, moving say the midlands so you are in striking distance of Oulton, Donny and Silverstone.
Stafford / Telford / Burton areas.
Other than that move to the highlands !!
Did the evo triangle (well a bit of it) at the weekend and there were several police cars plus average speed.
Cat and fiddle the same.
The dales is nice, not bad price wise and has reasonable transport links.
The roads are busy and well policed during the day but I have a couple of routes I take usually on a Saturday night after 10pm and they are empty and can make a bit more progress.
How about another option, moving say the midlands so you are in striking distance of Oulton, Donny and Silverstone.
Stafford / Telford / Burton areas.
Other than that move to the highlands !!
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