London Housing Shortage -Long distance commuters push up prices elsewhere

gallygirl

Less than 10 minutes walk to station then 50-55 mins on train to St P, virtually guaranteed a seat:

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-45334771.html?premiumA=true

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-44685710.html

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-30651963.html

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

vivatifosi wrote: »

That would be great. However it will seem slightly strange when London gets into a huff and calls for independence as "Wolverhampton just doesn't take our views into account".

:rotfl::rotfl:

lisyloo

And if you don't want a Brompton then the Boris Bikes are everywhere.

I come from outside London and I have to say I find the thought of riding a bicycle in central London absolutely terrifying.
I'm not a shrinking violet either - I instruct motorcycle instructors.

Maybe it's what you're used to but bear in mind this may look out of the question for outsiders.

CLAPTON

lisyloo wrote: »

I come from outside London and I have to say I find the thought of riding a bicycle in central London absolutely terrifying.
I'm not a shrinking violet either - I instruct motorcycle instructors.

Maybe it's what you're used to but bear in mind this may look out of the question for outsiders.

millions of overseas visitors have no problems using Boris bikes

buglawton

I tried Boris Bikes for the first time 2 days ago. Seamless experience for tourists but we stuck to cycle paths. Read up on the history and apparemtly the first fataility was at around the 2 millionth journey, accident rate is much lower than owned bikes.

michaels

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

Yes.

As would moving large employers out of London.

Government being one of the biggest.....

If the Capital of the UK, parliament, and all govt departments were moved to a new city in the geographic centre of the UK, we'd solve a lot of problems.

I'm quite liking this idea - where would we put the city?

Has any serious work ever been done on this idea?

vivatifosi

michaels wrote: »

I'm quite liking this idea - where would we put the city?

Has any serious work ever been done on this idea?

Yes. Apparently we should move it to Brasilia (sorry michaels, am in a strange mood today).

michaels

vivatifosi wrote: »

Yes. Apparently we should move it to Brasilia (sorry michaels, am in a strange mood today).

Hmmm whilst I'd be up for Rio I'm not sure I would fancy Brasilia....

what would move and what would stay?

vivatifosi

I have no idea. Just that it was a planned capital. As are Canberra, New Delhi, Abuja, Washington DC and several others. So it has been done, just not here. Plenty of experience of planned communities here though.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

michaels wrote: »

I'm quite liking this idea - where would we put the city?

The city would be best placed somewhere in the geographic centre of the mainland UK, and to save pages of arguments about how you measure 'centre' I'm going to go with half way up the vertical axis and roughly equidistant from the east and west coasts at that point.

Which would very roughly place it somewhere in the middle of a line drawn between Newcastle and Penrith.

Has any serious work ever been done on this idea?

Not that I know of.

The government has made some very half hearted attempts to move some things out of London, BBC, DVLA, etc, but nowhere near enough.

what would move and what would stay?

Everything government related.

Parliament, the civil service, MOD, Foreign Office, absolutely everything....

If it's funded by the UK government it would have to move.

This would also create a huge knock-on effect of other things moving as well, everything from consulting firms, to lobbyists, to foreign embassies, and of course a lot of private industry would follow in order to be close to the seat of power.

If you did it in a phased transition over say 20 years you'd completely rebalance the UK economy, take a load of pressure off the South East, bring an abundance of jobs to the North, ease the housing shortage by moving large parts of population close to the few areas that currently have a surplus, etc.

Not to mention you'd massively improve UK competitiveness as there's simply no way politicians would allow the dire state of infrastructure in the North to remain as it is if they were based there.

And of course politically you'd remove the constant accusations that national policy favours London/SE, you'd make the seat of government more geographically accessible for most of the country, more attention would be paid to the regions, etc etc etc.....

The benefits could be quite staggeringly large.