When did Alnmouth hit the big time?

[quantinghome]

It's fair to say it's been a while since I used it, but looking at the current timetable Alnmouth seems to have amassed a huge number of services. Where has that come from? Yes, Alnwick is nearby but it's not THAT big.

 

[Ballyheigue]

It's fair to say it's been a while since I used it, but looking at the current timetable Alnmouth seems to have amassed a huge number of services. Where has that come from? Yes, Alnwick is nearby but it's not THAT big.

Harry Potter obsession has, I believe, led to an increase in visitors to Alnwick.

 

[Dr Hoo]

Harry Potter obsession has, I believe, led to an increase in visitors to Alnwick.

With some of the early filming using Alnwick Castle as a location.

 

[SeanG]

It's also a useful place for many of the residents of surrounding towns/villages to drive to, so they can get a relatively fast train into Newcastle

 

[swt_passenger]

It's also a useful place for many of the residents of surrounding towns/villages to drive to, so they can get a relatively fast train into Newcastle

It had a vastly improved amount of car parking a good few years ago, I wonder if that was shown to generate extra local passengers?

 

[dk1]

Extreme growth from around 70k in the 1990s to 379k at Alnmouth today. Broughty Ferry also impressed me after recently staying there going from a mere 6k to 148k now. Just goes to show that give the public a decent train service and they will certainly use it.

 

[Tetchytyke]

It’s amazing, give people somewhere to park their car and a regular train service and they will use it.

 

[SeanG]

From what I understand, getting into Newcastle by car is a bit of a challenge in the morning through either the west end or Gosforth, either by car or bus.

There is signed park and ride on the Metro but the car parks aren't massive and reliability is patchy.

Similar issues have helped the success of the Northumberland line.

 

[kaysha]

Thanks to scottish tax rates, a work colleage decided a couple of years ago to move to just ouside Alnwick and wotk from home but commute a couple of days a week to Edinburgh from Alnmouth. Savings in tax offsets the cost of travel plus she gets to stay in a beautiful part of the country.

 

[30907]

It's also a useful place for many of the residents of surrounding towns/villages to drive to, so they can get a relatively fast train into Newcastle

And (having stayed in Alnmouth last autumn and explored north and south) while Alnmouth itself hasn't grown significantly there is new(ish) housing in many of the villages.

I suspect that what were once places to retire to (Seahouses, Amble....) are increasingly places to commute from; Northumberland is going the way of Thanet a century ago (and many other areas).

It will be interesting to see if Ashington draws some of the traffic as there's a pretty good road south from Alnmouth.

It had a vastly improved amount of car parking a good few years ago, I wonder if that was shown to generate extra local passengers?

I suspect the houses came first, and the cars were parked all day on local streets (and still are!).

 

[endecotp]

Thanks to scottish tax rates, a work colleage decided a couple of years ago to move to just ouside Alnwick and wotk from home but commute a couple of days a week to Edinburgh from Alnmouth. Savings in tax offsets the cost of travel plus she gets to stay in a beautiful part of the country.

Let's just sanity-check that....

If you buy standard-class advances a couple of days ahead, you can probably make the return journey for about £40.
That's about £4k per year.

If you earn £100k, in Scotland you'll pay £30,731 income tax. In England, you'll pay £27,341. (Please feel free to check my arithmetic; the rates are at https://www.gov.uk/income-tax-rates ).

That's a saving of £3,300.

So you need to be earning somewhere above £100k for this to balance out.

Anyone earning less than about £33,500 will pay less income tax in Scotland.

 

[kaysha]

Let's just sanity-check that....

If you buy standard-class advances a couple of days ahead, you can probably make the return journey for about £40.
That's about £4k per year.

If you earn £100k, in Scotland you'll pay £30,731 income tax. In England, you'll pay £27,341. (Please feel free to check my arithmetic; the rates are at https://www.gov.uk/income-tax-rates ).

That's a saving of £3,300.

So you need to be earning somewhere above £100k for this to balance out.

Anyone earning less than about £33,500 will pay less income tax in Scotland.

Well oblivously you need to be earning a decent salary and probably be paying advanced rate tax to make this work. So admitadly this is pretty niche. In their case they also saved their commute from Dunblane (which was 5 days a week pre covid!)
Also at around an hour the travel times are similar

 

[Djgr]

Well oblivously you need to be earning a decent salary and probably be paying advanced rate tax to make this work. So admitadly this is pretty niche. In their case they also saved their commute from Dunblane (which was 5 days a week pre covid!)
Also at around an hour the travel times are similar

Probably a better solution would be to live near Edinburgh, where there are some beautiful nearby locations (e.g. North Berwick) AND have access to all its culture, which, in the best will in the world and being extremely generous, Alnmouth is going to struggle to match.

 

[Porty]

Probably a better solution would be to live near Edinburgh, where there are some beautiful nearby locations (e.g. North Berwick) AND have access to all its culture, which, in the best will in the world and being extremely generous, Alnmouth is going to struggle to match.

And if you have teenage children planning to go to university save £9kp.a. on tuition fees