Schools close as families are priced out of rural areas

lostinrates

ruggedtoast wrote: »

As much as my knee jerk anti capitalist communist leanings want me to be angry about this topic I think its worth looking at a bit more dispassionately.
I agree..desite any comments I now make.
Firstly - its the people who live in the country and own property who are presumably responsible for pricing eachother out of buying. No ones forcing them to sell their mortgage free country cottage to Bill the London Banker for £750,000 when they could sell it to cousin Dave for £250,000. Apart from inheritance tax, which I presume is taken on what the house is worth on open market. Sadly not all country workers are landed, sale of council farms and tenanted farms has had impact.

Secondly, the nature of the countryside, as in all developed countries - has totally changed. Previously people wanted to escape rural drudgery for a better life in the towns. Now its the reverse. Agreed.

There is just not enough industry left in the countryside proper to support a local economy. Any agricultural jobs that remain are very low wage, the rest have vanished due to automation and agribusiness. I dont like this but as I shop in a supermarket I'd be a hypocrite for going against it. Yep: in rural industry. Other idustry does happen out here though.

The alternative is either going back to the past, with millions of men and women labouring at local low skilled jobs, or stepping into the future with people in totally wired and networked home-offices that no longer need to be in the towns. Neither is really practical from where we are. Or something different altogether, possibly? I don't know.

Of course the other alternative is what the NHF want, vast rural subsidies for local people to live in places where there is little work so that they can compete with very wealthy people who can and will pay millions for pretty views. The tax burden of which will fall on people who live in towns. This is not the solution either. Their are some very, very rich farmers, and some very poor ones. Subsidies often help the richest more than the poorest, in the way they have operated.

Unfortunately if you build the social housing that the NHF wants the country villages will become towns and the problem will just be shifted elsewhere. There is room for some new housing, whether ''we'' out here like it or not. There are ways to minimise negative impact of this: good building, green building, tactful building.

The main industry of the countryside now is essentially leisure. Thats not going to change anytime soon. There are still farmers here though and many have diversified into leisure. I think thats a good thing, often increasing access to the country side.

I would love to wake up each morning, throw open the window of my detached cottage and look at open fields before seinding my kids off to the local free government school, witrh 2 teachers and 12 children, and then cycling off to the village to sell stamps in the post office - but unfortunately there are about 60 million other people on this crowded island who want that too. I agree.

I am much more bothered about the affordability crisis afflicting the priced out working poor in our urban centres. People whos plight isnt that different from the pre-industrial agricultural labourers.

I'm worried about it all.

ruggedtoast

My response to this issue really is sorry – but tough. I don’t want to live and work in London but I have to. I certainly wasn’t born anywhere near this festering dump and if I could get an equivalent job anywhere else I would go in a second.

If anyone is spending any money on improving housing they need to spend it where people live, in the cities. If so much of Britain’s urban landscape wasn’t so godawfully grim then there’d be less pressure on the country as well.

In any case last I checked there are plenty of cheap houses in actual rural locations like North Wales – the Hebrides etc.

I think if you want to live in a picture perfect village in the South of England, an hours drive away from Guildford or somewhere you’ll just have to accept that you’re competing with a lot of other people to do so. Regardless of whether you were born there or not.

Good God – immigrants on benefits, single mothers, failed banks, failed bankers, a PM who is a failure, stupid wars in the Middle East, new identities for prisoners, and now rural housing. Is there anything else my bloody taxes are meant to support. Welfare for distressed guinea pigs or something?

Jesus wept.

And that’s all Ive got to say on this matter.


>:-[

StevieJ

ruggedtoast wrote: »

In any case last I checked there are plenty of cheap houses in actual rural locations like North Wales – the Hebrides etc.

>:-[

I found east Lincolnshire good value and quite charming as well.

boyse7en

ruggedtoast wrote: »

My response to this issue really is sorry – but tough. I don’t want to live and work in London but I have to. I certainly wasn’t born anywhere near this festering dump and if I could get an equivalent job anywhere else I would go in a second.

So if you don't want to live in London, move to a rural area (North Wales, Hebrides etc).
Of course, jobs there won't pay the sort of money you are used to in London - but the housing is cheaper. Trouble is, that it is kind of pro rata - a job in London may pay £30k and you can buy a flat with it. Here, the same job will pay about £12k and... you'll be be able to buy a flat with it.

The problem is that, having sold your house in London, you'll have a nice fat deposit compared to any local buyers, so will be able to pay more/borrow more to buy the house with the nice view - pricing local families out of the market.
When they go to live elsewhere, they will take their children with them, hence falling school numbers and closing schools. Most of the people who move down to rural areas do so having retired or downsized and come without children to replenish the dwindling stock for the local schools.

lostinrates

boyse7en wrote: »

The problem is that, having sold your house in London, you'll have a nice fat deposit compared to any local buyers, so will be able to pay more/borrow more to buy the house with the nice view - pricing local families out of the market. .

I get this, and sympathise, but...the ''Londoners'', the south easters etc price out the ruralers, because someone priced them out...