Moving about

[tobyaw]

It struck me the other day that many of my friends have moved away from the place where they lived as children and made their own choice of where to live, whereas at work there are a higher number of people who are native to the area. So I thought I’d make a poll.

[Poll #1735055]

Comments

[vivdunstan.livejournal.com]

I chose education, which is right, but it's not why I stay in this area. It's because I love St Andrews, and wouldn't want to move away far. But that predates university, going back to summer holidays from age 8 onwards.

Martin and I were determined to stay in this area. Luckily work has made that possible!

[vivdunstan.livejournal.com]

Oh and I won't move now, if I can help it. I have a very rare (1 in a million) neurological disease, and have an excellent consultant and support at Ninewells, including monthly clinic visits. I'd be taking my chances by moving away to another hospital's coverage area. So won't. Not even back to my home area, though I miss that a lot too.

[djelibeybi-meg.livejournal.com]

Given the option to move with my job, it was an opportunity to salvage my husband's health. Whilst it helped, it was not entirely successful.

[andrewducker]

I disapprove of my neighbours BECAUSE THEY WILL NOT TURN DOWN THE MUSIC AT 2AM!!!

[tobyaw]

I approve of my neighbours! We’re semi-detached to a holiday home, and they’re only about at odd weekends. Peace and quiet through the week! (And no complaints about the volume of my film watching.)

[ggreig]

I don't approve of any of those things; because they don't need my approval and are basically none of my business. My lack of approval shouldn't be taken as disapproval.

[tobyaw]

All of the “approval” issues have been controversial in some areas. I think it is fair to have an opinion on behaviour that has an impact on one’s quality of life, on the affordability of housing, and on the local infrastructure.

[tokyo-mb.livejournal.com]

Your questions are difficult to answer Toby... Do I answer them for my flat in London (currently let out but by 2012 to become my weekday home), home in Tokyo or our new place in Shropshire (which will be my weekend home, but not a holiday home). For the latter, we will certainly be in-comers for at least the next 25 years(!)

It's interesting to see (from Facebook friend requests) just how many of my peers from my rural secondary school are still within 10-15 miles of where they grew up.

As to approval, to my mind holiday homes vary - something that is used regularly and where the holiday-makers use local shops and facilities is generally positive, where not occupied for much of the year and supplied solely by Tesco delivery it is much less easy to "approve" from the perspective of impact on the local community.

[tobyaw]

I was interested by how many people I know who have moved away from their childhood home town, and how unusual that is in the country at large.

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

I lean towards mild disapproval of people buying holiday homes and homes to let around here because the property market is already insane and neither of these things helps. More than 10x average income is necessary to buy anything in most areas of the city (5.5xAI in the UK generally), and the average house price is 14.5xAI, which is just not reasonable, but buy-to-let/part-time residents unfortunately render that level sustainable.

[tokyo-mb.livejournal.com]

Research sponsored by a quango set up by the last government shows that on average only 7% of the increase in average house prices between 1996 and 2007 was down to buy-to-let. Even without buy-to-let average house prices in that period would have increased by 130%.

See http://www.communities.gov.uk/documents/507390/pdf/684948.pdf (summary press release) and http://www.communities.gov.uk/documents/507390/pdf/684943.pdf (technical econometric report).

I could advance a strong argument that buy-to-let is actually a good thing in that it keeps average rent down, and increases availability of rental stock - which is arguably more important to the economy than the level of average house prices.

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

On average, maybe. Oxford is desperately fighting HMO issues (http://www.oxfordtimes.co.uk/news/8967560.Oxford_loses_student_housing_court_battle/) - pretty much every resident (including students) believes we have too many rented shared houses.

The rise in Oxford house prices over the last 15 years is way above average, and average rent here is also insanely high. (Plus we have some of the highest retail unit rents outside London, which is killing business here as well.) We actually need more dedicated student housing, but that's currently blocked for all sorts of reasons.

[tokyo-mb.livejournal.com]

Fully understand the report was talking averages.

Surely even in Oxford retail unit rents are subject to supply and demand - if there wasn't demand at those rents, the price would drop, at least over time? Or is it a case of there being too few retail units, and planning issues means supply cannot readily increase?

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

Planning issues - a lot of the city centre is owned by the colleges, and there are various reasons for not allowing them to revamp or expand the retail units. A lot of the buildings are listed, which makes them effectively unalterable for disability access etc. This combined with the no-cars ideal (OTS side-effects: very high parking costs, no through-route public transport, poor accessibility for elderly/disabled) is making it very hard for most businesses to thrive. The rents won't drop because "it's Oxford", and there's always another coffee or mobile phone shop willing to move in to take advantage of the student market.

The council's been struggling with this for the last 20 years to my knowledge, and it gets worse rather than better. We have finally got a supermarket in the very centre again, after 12 years - two, in fact, as Tesco and Sainsbury's are 2 doors apart in the same building! - and there was very stiff opposition to those.

[dianec42.livejournal.com]

I cannot imagine anyone buying a holiday home in my current neighbourhood, but I certainly don't see why not.

[sismith42.livejournal.com]

While I worked away from home for 6 months, I don't count that as moving, as it wasn't permenant (I still had "my" home in Edinburgh).

Also, I don't think it's appropriate for me to approve (or not) of my neighbours.