Whilst many foreigners can’t wait to try out London living, London locals have had enough of the big smoke and are moving out in droves. Last year, the capital lost the largest number of people through internal migration of any area in the UK and that looks set to be repeated in 2009…
What a seething metropolis London is. There’s something new to do on every street corner and you could eat in a different restaurant every night of the year if you so wished. There’s culture, art, street theatre, history, shopping, drinking and sightseeing galore, all caught up in a blaze of big city living.
The downside is there are also endless crowds, attitude problems, crime, litter, sky high prices and hours of travel to get from one end to another. And that is why I would like to move out of London.
Now, I feel a bit young to be making the classic city to country move – plus I don’t have any of the pre-requisites – a healthy bank balance and a couple of kids, but I’m over city living. I’m tired of living in a box listening to the person in the box above snoring. I’m tired of calling a (dead) window box a garden and doing food shopping in Londis.
I’m ready to move…gasp…out of the city and I’m not alone. New research from the Bank of Scotland has revealed that between 1998 and 2007, two million people moved out of London to set up home in other parts of Britain.
The report, which was based on data sourced from the 2008 Population Trends published by the Office for National Statistics, found that, whilst those two million were busy heading out of town, 1.8 million foreigners were busy choosing their UK property in London.
So, despite losing a large number of residents and being the only region of the UK to experience a net population loss last year, London’s overall population was boosted over the 10 years to 2007 thanks to international immigration.
London experienced by far the biggest level of net international migration, with almost 1.8 million more people moving to London from abroad than have moved from the capital to live outside the UK.
The South East of England was the most popular region for people to move to from elsewhere in the UK, leading to a net increase of 550,889.
Martin Ellis, Bank of Scotland Chief Economist, said, “There have been significant population movements across the UK over the past ten years.
“Regions in southern England saw the largest gain from internal migration with the South East proving the most popular region for people to move to from elsewhere in the UK,†he added.
Northern Ireland also gained 10,681 residents through internal migration.
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