Seriously, how can anyone use the railway for long distance commuting?

[urbophile]

But, the payback is property prices would be lower, as would the cost of living.

What's the evidence that the 'cost of living' in London is much dearer, once you eliminate house prices?

 

[stuu]

What's the evidence that the 'cost of living' in London is much dearer, once you eliminate house prices?

Go and buy a pint in London

 

[Jimini]

Go and buy a pint in London

Don't forget to remortgage first

 

[43096]

What's the evidence that the 'cost of living' in London is much dearer, once you eliminate house prices?

Go to London and find out, because clearly you haven't been.

Go and buy a pint in London

Exactly!

 

[sh24]

Beer, dining out, taxi fares, council tax and basically most things.

 

[AndrewE]

Beer, dining out, taxi fares, council tax and basically most things.

true, we noted that when we were last there (admittedly quite a while ago), but it was noticeable that fruit, veg and other basic groceries were cheaper and better quality than we could find out in the sticks...

I couldn't imagine trying to find a house in the London commuter belt... but we couldn't even afford a house with a garden in Bristol on a railway plus a teacher's wage in 1975!

 

[Russel]

What's the evidence that the 'cost of living' in London is much dearer, once you eliminate house prices?

To be fair, I know a lot of Londoners complain about the cost of public transport under TFL, but I actually think it's quite good value, look at a zone 1-3 travelcard cap, £10.50 for all day bus, tube and rail travel, if I want to go from my house to my local town centre, 2 miles away, it's £6 return, £6 to travel 4 miles...

 

[urbophile]

Beer, dining out, taxi fares, council tax and basically most things.

Beer I'll grant you. But there are plenty of cheap restaurants. When I lived in London, councils like Wandsworth boasted of having the lowest rates of tax in the country (at one point, zero). Maybe that has changed. Public transport is noticeably cheaper than in the rest of the UK.

 

[sh24]

Beer I'll grant you. But there are plenty of cheap restaurants. When I lived in London, councils like Wandsworth boasted of having the lowest rates of tax in the country (at one point, zero). Maybe that has changed. Public transport is noticeably cheaper than in the rest of the UK.

Transport is good value I agree. Council tax - Wandsworth and Westminster are cheaper but the others most certainly are not.

Yes there are good value restaurants but as cheap as the rest of the country outside the SE? Having spent 140 nights in the regions so far this year! it's materially more expensive in London to dine out. Generally quality but we do pay for it. Stuff like child care, cleaners etc all cost more too.

Bringing it back on topic, the cumulative impact is why people move out to the burbs or commute long distance.

 

[Jimini]

Beer I'll grant you. But there are plenty of cheap restaurants. When I lived in London, councils like Wandsworth boasted of having the lowest rates of tax in the country (at one point, zero). Maybe that has changed. Public transport is noticeably cheaper than in the rest of the UK.

Fair point. I lived in Tooting for 10+ years. Wandsworth council tax was joyous! Those who lived a couple of blocks down past the Thameslink trainline in Merton, not so much

 

[Lewisham2221]

Beer, dining out, taxi fares, council tax and basically most things.

Not strictly true. A band D property in Greenwich will cost you about £60 a year less in council tax than a band D property in Stoke-on-Trent and 'spoons in the centre of Greenwich charges pretty much the same as 'spoons in the centre of Stoke. Yes, there's some pubs in London that will charge you an arm and leg, but there's plenty up north that are charging eye watering amounts these days too. Most high street retailers charge the same prices across the UK and a postage stamp will cost you the same price in Kingston-upon-Thames as it will in Kingston-upon-Hull, as will a mobile phone contract. You can easily pay 4x or 5x more rent for roughly comparable properties though

 

[Uncle Buck]

To be fair, I know a lot of Londoners complain about the cost of public transport under TFL, but I actually think it's quite good value, look at a zone 1-3 travelcard cap, £10.50 for all day bus, tube and rail travel, if I want to go from my house to my local town centre, 2 miles away, it's £6 return, £6 to travel 4 miles...

I find that once housing is eliminated, the cost of buying most things in London is the same as in Glasgow, if it helps.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, I was recently visiting the Isle of Arran…and struck by how expensive everything was. The only shop is the Co-op and everyone was buying enormous amounts of petrol to get around, whereas I can shop at Aldi and walk lots of places.

Not strictly true. A band D property in Greenwich will cost you about £60 a year less in council tax than a band D property in Stoke-on-Trent and 'spoons in the centre of Greenwich charges pretty much the same as 'spoons in the centre of Stoke. Yes, there's some pubs in London that will charge you an arm and leg, but there's plenty up north that are charging eye watering amounts these days too. Most high street retailers charge the same prices across the UK and a postage stamp will cost you the same price in Kingston-upon-Thames as it will in Kingston-upon-Hull, as will a mobile phone contract. You can easily pay 4x or 5x more rent for roughly comparable properties though

Exactly.

 

[Magdalia]

A band D property in Greenwich will cost you about £60 a year less in council tax than a band D property in Stoke-on-Trent

There is a classic misunderstanding about council tax here. Band D is a reference point for calculating the other bands, it doesn't represent similar properties in different parts of the country. Band D are properties valued between £68k and £88k in 1991, so a band D property in Stoke is not the same as a band D property in Greenwich.

Greenwich and Stoke are a handy comparison because they have similar numbers of properties, just over 120k, but the distribution across the bands is very different:

Greenwich A 11, B 21, C45, D 27, E 13, F4, G 2
Stoke A 70, B 26, C 16, D 5, E 2, F 1

Note that more than half of properties in Stoke are in band A, and the number of band D properties is very small. This is a fairly typical distribution for places in the north.

Looking at the numbers I expect that a similar sized property to band D in Greenwich would be in band B in Stoke.

 

[yorksrob]

One of the good things about London and the South East generally, is that you still get traditional cafes that do things like bubble & squeak and fried bread. The Northern cities like Leeds are too yuppiefied lMO.

 

[Tetragon213]

What's the evidence that the 'cost of living' in London is much dearer, once you eliminate house prices?

My company has a specific rule for expenses "within the M25", where the limits for what you can book and claim go up by about 30-40% compared to the rest of the country.

The amount you can borrow on university maintenance loans is higher if you are in London.

Student finance for undergraduates

Student finance - student loans or student grants for tuition fees and living costs, extra help, student loan repayments.

www.gov.uk

And how about a university study on the subject?

A decent standard of living in London costs up to 58% more compared to the rest of the UK, new figures show

A basic standard of living in London is up to 58% more expensive than in other urban areas of the UK.

www.lboro.ac.uk

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 6 Dec 2025 ==

But, the payback is property prices would be lower, as would the cost of living.

Probably, yes. But even from somewhere like Retford or Bath, I'd wager driving in would be cheaper than a train ticket.

 

[Elecman]

My daughter was commuting by car to Manchester city centre close to Piccadilly. I went with her once or twice to get train from there to airport when I was living in the USA. I much preferred getting a train from Preston direct to the airport. So it is not just London bound commutes that can be horrendous.

Indeed Manchester is painful at peak times I commuted there for 12 years by car

 

[Lewisham2221]

My company has a specific rule for expenses "within the M25", where the limits for what you can book and claim go up by about 30-40% compared to the rest of the country.

The amount you can borrow on university maintenance loans is higher if you are in London.

Student finance for undergraduates

Student finance - student loans or student grants for tuition fees and living costs, extra help, student loan repayments.

www.gov.uk

And how about a university study on the subject?

A decent standard of living in London costs up to 58% more compared to the rest of the UK, new figures show

A basic standard of living in London is up to 58% more expensive than in other urban areas of the UK.

www.lboro.ac.uk

Yes, again, primarily due to the higher cost of accommodation/housing. Property prices are the significant factor in London "cost of living" being higher than the rest of the country - other goods and services are not universally, significantly more expensive in London than elsewhere.

 

[Tetragon213]

Yes, again, primarily due to the higher cost of accommodation/housing. Property prices are the significant factor in London "cost of living" being higher than the rest of the country - other goods and services are not universally, significantly more expensive in London than elsewhere.

And yet, for food expenses within my company, the limit on spending within the M25 area (aka what is popularly deemed to be close enough to London) is boosted by a third compared to food expenses incurred anywhere else in the country. I'm not going to include the hotel cost rule as that is related to property value, but the rules on claims and bookings for food and transport in and around London are far more generous than the rules on claims and bookings in Cardiff or Edinburgh.

Somewhere in my inbox at work, I have a £300 Standard return from Cardiff to London. I could drive that journey about 8 times over in my car for that money, and still have pocket change.

 

[43096]

Probably, yes. But even from somewhere like Retford or Bath, I'd wager driving in would be cheaper than a train ticket.

True. But time is the critical element, which is where HST was the game-changer.

 

[35B]

9am meetings for me are the exception rather than the norm, but perfectly within the usual rules. It's Friday afternoon meetings which are the big no-no without a really flipping good reason for it.

I would assume they also made a huge difference on the ECML. Retford-London would probably have been just about doable I suspect, maybe even Doncaster if the pay was right. But my lord would it have to be one heck of a pay packet just to cover the season ticket alone. I imagine it would be a lot cheaper, even taking into account "business rates" of mileage, to drive in over taking the train.

I moved from Zone 5 to Grantham 20-odd years ago. We sold a small 2 bed terrace house and bought a 4 bed detached for a net £500. The saving in mortgage from trading up in the same area covered what a season would have cost. Changes in my work mean that, when I do go to London, it's at my employer's expense rather than as a season - which is a boon.

I still travel to London, and wouldn't contemplate driving on any kind of regular basis. The gains on cost for fuel need to be balanced against car parking and increased maintenance costs, while the time and energy are completely different. Driving just 50 miles down the A1, I'm taking as long to drive (and getting as tired) as if I took the train into London - the ECML is just much faster.

When I did commute, my experience was as others have commented - it's generally fine, but you have to have contingency options ready for when it does go wrong. And Delay Repay isn't that bad an anaesthetic...

 

[The exile]

Probably, yes. But even from somewhere like Retford or Bath, I'd wager driving in would be cheaper than a train ticket.

Anyone who contemplates driving regularly from Bath to London at the same sort of times as other people must be made of stern stuff!

 

[al78]

My daughter was commuting by car to Manchester city centre close to Piccadilly. I went with her once or twice to get train from there to airport when I was living in the USA. I much preferred getting a train from Preston direct to the airport. So it is not just London bound commutes that can be horrendous.

Where I am currently, temporarily near Irlams o'th Height (Salford) where several major roads converge, the traffic around there is horrendous from about 3-6pm during the working week. Eccles and Monton are just as bad, largely because there are at least eight schools within about four square miles so all the parents have to go out in their cars at the same time to take them home, just before the commuter traffic gets going.

 

[Russel]

For the first time in a while, my 2 x weekly WCML Trent Valley commutes have gone without a hitch this week!

It's too good to last, I dread to think what treats LNWR will have in store for me next week!

 

[stwales]

I have done long distance commuting since the 90's and found it mostly fine. I did Totton to Waterloo; Whitchurch(Hants) to Waterloo; Newport/Abergavenny to Paddington and Hereford to Paddington most recently. I did 3 days per week on average, with the train as an extension of the office, using a laptop to work, or watch films/tv, occasionally. I used a 386 laptop with ramdisc in the late 80's, graduating to linux/BSD in the early to mid 90's, i used to take a spare laptop battery with me because there weren't power points. The journey from Newport/Abergavenny always seemed more reliable, I can't think I was ever delayed on the first trains of the day, although July 2005 was difficult. I cycled to Totton and Whitchurch, when the weather was okish and telephoned for a lift back when it was pouring down