£1.40 a litre

kabayiri

RenovationMan wrote: »

Its already happening, especially with those who do not need to be in the office to do their work. It wont be an overnight thing as you rather naively (?) seem to indicate, rather a gradual process with ever increasing numbers choosing their job and home locations on the basis of reduced or zero travel costs.

I think we need positive incentives to get people to telecommute, specifically employer incentives.

It's often not resistance to the idea by employees, but employers who don't see enough current incentive to change.

ukcarper

Depending on what you do you could always work longer days if you worked a couple of hours extra a day you could work 4 days instead of 5 and save 20% of your travelling costs.

wymondham

kabayiri wrote: »

I think we need positive incentives to get people to telecommute, specifically employer incentives.

It's often not resistance to the idea by employees, but employers who don't see enough current incentive to change.

broadband has enabled lots to move over to this way of working. Travelling to and from an office will eventually been seen as a total waste of time and energy once connectivity improves further and employers grasp the opportunities....

Kohoutek

RenovationMan wrote: »

I think that as transports costs increase, we will see a move towards people living closer to where they work, putting their kids in local schools and shopping in local shops.

I think this will result in a return to communities because workmates will live near to each other, school kids will live near to each other and housewives/house husbands will know each other from visiting the local shops. i.e. people will know more people who live near them.

Simples.

Continued rising fuel costs will have a much more profound effect than that, especially in villages and rural locations in general. If you believe in "peak oil", then we've got much higher fuel prices to come in the next 10 years and beyond, because the actual decline in oil production hasn't even started yet.

If transport costs continue to rise without any mitigation, then fuel may eventually become such a large expense for service providers to rural locations, both government services such as post and private services such as haulage or tradesmen, that providing those services can barely be justified anymore.

It's all very well having the locals buying their weekly shop from the village shop, but unless the things they are buying are produced locally, it doesn't ultimately reduce our dependency on oil based transport fuels. In terms of food in particular, the UK is not currently self-sufficient and has tremendous pressure to build on farmland to relieve pressure on the housing market. It's a problem that's not going to be solved anytime soon...

moggylover

RenovationMan wrote: »

I didnt say that everyone had to go and live in rural areas. I said that people will drift back to using the high street and village shops. Obviously if you live in a village, you will use village shops. If you dont live in a village, then there are no village shops to use, but there are few towns that dont have high streets. If you live in a city, then you have lots of local shops on your doorstep.

There we go; villages, towns and cities all included and not a mention of everyone having to live rurally in the whole thread.

As far as people resisting, its more like people choosing to do this because the alternative is to spend more money commuting and driving to out of town shopping centres than you actually earn or actually spend.

I think you have gotten confused somewhat and have started putting words into my mouth, perhaps to bolster your argument? Anyway, to recap:

I think that as transports costs increase, we will see a move towards people living closer to where they work, putting their kids in local schools and shopping in local shops.

I think this will result in a return to communities because workmates will live near to each other, school kids will live near to each other and housewives/house husbands will know each other from visiting the local shops. i.e. people will know more people who live near them.

Simples.

Most of the villages around here no longer have any village shops. There is little work except in the few bigger towns, and then the cost of housing rises significantly, but the wages don't cover that cost, often not even when you take into account the cost of travel.

I think that a return to working on your doorstep is a wonderful idea. That is pretty much the best sense anyone has come up with in fact. However, the logistics of getting the financial sector jobs which predominate in the market (for instance) to move from big city locations appears to be beyond their common sense.

Currently, most of the wealth and opportunity in the UK is squashed into the SE of England, and anyone can see why historically that began. That it makes no sense anymore doesn't appear to be changing it. Other than the SE, there are small pockets of prosperity around the UK, again centred on cities rather than smaller communities and so many people are forced to do the rat run each day, or alternatively be without work at all. In areas such as my own much of the work is seasonal and still needs doing, and still needs people to do it (although almost anything around here involves travelling to get there) but fails miserably to provide much of an income and certainly not a big enough one in the 6/8 months that it is available to last people all year.



If you can come up with ways of insisting that some of the work is shifted from those centres and spread about the UK more reasonably and rationally then you can have my vote at the next election because it does make more sense:D

moggylover

wymondham wrote: »

broadband has enabled lots to move over to this way of working. Travelling to and from an office will eventually been seen as a total waste of time and energy once connectivity improves further and employers grasp the opportunities....

From what I understand, it isn't that employers need to grasp the opportunities, it is that they don't actually see any of them. Perhaps they just don't trust people to work hard enough from home. It certainly seems a better idea than having the costs of running larger and larger offices, etc. but it hasn't caught on big time (as the threads on here about opportunities working from home will attest) except often in scams or the sex industry:eek:

moggylover

Kohoutek wrote: »

Continued rising fuel costs will have a much more profound effect than that, especially in villages and rural locations in general. If you believe in "peak oil", then we've got much higher fuel prices to come in the next 10 years and beyond, because the actual decline in oil production hasn't even started yet.

If transport costs continue to rise without any mitigation, then fuel may eventually become such a large expense for service providers to rural locations, both government services such as post and private services such as haulage or tradesmen, that providing those services can barely be justified anymore.

It's all very well having the locals buying their weekly shop from the village shop, but unless the things they are buying are produced locally, it doesn't ultimately reduce our dependency on oil based transport fuels. In terms of food in particular, the UK is not currently self-sufficient and has tremendous pressure to build on farmland to relieve pressure on the housing market. It's a problem that's not going to be solved anytime soon...

:T:T:T:T:T

And, if we insist on paying the food producers in the UK less than it costs to produce their product then things are only going to get worse, and the more dependant we are upon foreign imports the more that transport of food will waste resources.

Rolandtheroadie

REAL_MEN_DRIVE_AUDIS wrote: »

£1.40 a litre for petrol certainly isn't cheap especially when you drive a top of the range Audi TT.

Your absolutely right. The woman round here that sells carpets doesnt seem too bothered and neither does the wifes hairdresser.

vivatifosi

moggylover wrote: »

From what I understand, it isn't that employers need to grasp the opportunities, it is that they don't actually see any of them. Perhaps they just don't trust people to work hard enough from home. It certainly seems a better idea than having the costs of running larger and larger offices, etc. but it hasn't caught on big time (as the threads on here about opportunities working from home will attest) except often in scams or the sex industry:eek:

It is a dilemma for companies. For most firms, the largest cost is employment and the second largest property. The software has existed for a few years now to monitor the keystroke activity of workers on computers from their home. It is also possible to record calls and check they are doing what they are supposed to. This scenario works fine if you are used to working in a call centre environment. Co-Op Travel for example, had a team of 600 workers in its virtual call centre prior to its merger with Thos Cook and I know Thos Cook has home based agents because I've spoken to them.

It'll take a while to roll out because firms can be cynical of this model, but in its favour worker retention can be higher as can quality of staff appointed. However it is a valid alternative to offshoring a call centre when looking to reduce costs. Though granted, not everyone works in a call centre so it won't work for all types of office.

sharnad

RenovationMan wrote: »

Are you saying that close to where you work, there is not a single property that you can afford to buy or rent. Not a single one?

Even if that is the case, why not change to a job that is close to where you now live?

There are more options available than just giving up work and going on the dole, though that one does seem to be the Economy board's 'stock in trade':

"I cant get to work cheaply, I might as well go on the dole!"

"I pay too much tax, I might as well go on the dole!"

"I cant get the lid off this jam jar, I might as well go on the dole!"

Yes thats what I am saying, and I would find it hard to find a job close to where I live as there are not many in the area, public transport is dire and it would mean a massive paycut when I have a mortgage to pay