Commute - how much is too much?

[user15681]

Interesting article on the BBC today which is pretty relevant. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25593532 following the link will also display the table of the 14 commuter hotspots and the figure breakdown.

Some commuters who move to cheaper accommodation outside London may not be saving as much as they think.

New research suggests that around half of such savings are immediately eaten into by the cost of train fares, which rose by an average of 2.8% last week.

Allowing for the cost of a season ticket, some areas can even be more expensive to live in than London itself.

But other towns provide an average cost advantage of over £8,000 a year.

The research, by the estate agency Haart, suggested commuters moving to Oxford or Cambridge will find the cost of a season ticket more than outweighs the benefits of cheaper housing.

The analysis of 14 commuter hotspots suggests that, on average, people save £10,779 a year by moving out of London, but then spend £5,160 a year on train fares.

Thus, a London commuter moving to Cambridge may save £3,730 a year on the cost of a mortgage but will now pay £4,160 on a season ticket, leaving them £430 out of pocket.

Someone moving to Oxford will fare even worse, ending up more than £2,000 a year worse off.

Oxford has relatively high property prices.

Bargain locations
On the other hand, commuters can make considerable savings by moving to less expensive locations, such as Southend in Essex, Southampton, or Grantham in Lincolnshire.

The average price of a house in Southend is less than half that in London.

After taking into account the cost of an annual season ticket, commuters can save themselves more than £8,600 a year by living on the Essex coast.

The same is true of Southampton, although travellers will have to spend more than an hour on the train to Waterloo.

The cost of commuting itself can also be offputting. The latest fare rises mean the price of an annual season ticket from Dover to London has gone through the £5,000 barrier for the first time.

"For a couple who both live regionally, the annual cost of travelling in to London could mount up to £10,000," Haart chief executive Paul Smith said.

 

[Baxenden Bank]

Who can live by train alone, outside of London and maybe Glasgow I doubt many.

Train alone, perhaps difficult.

Bus, train, walk, cycle and the occaisional taxi. Entirely reasonable - and cheaper if the full costs of owning a car are factored in e.g. depreciation, loan costs etc.

25.8% of households in England have no access to a car - that's households not individuals (Census 2011). In terms of numbers there are 5,691,251 households or 13.7m people (at 2.4 persons per household) without access to a vehicle. Although some will have motorbikes or scooters (which aren't counted) and some will be dependent upon others to get them out and about - e.g. too young or very old/frail.

 

[Tetchytyke]

£5k for Swindon and £8.5k for Gloucester etc (I reserve the right to have got these numbers wrong)

Try doubling both those figures.

A season ticket from Tring to London Z1-6 is £4700 a year, for a journey of 31 miles in each direction. It's a bit higher from Aylesbury, and a bit lower from High Wycombe. These are dormitory towns, and the cost is excessive.

That said, a two bedroom cottage with a garden will cost £800pcm rent. In Islington, where I work, the cost will be more like £2000pcm.

I don't think it is reasonable to be on £20/30k a year and expect to be able to live in Ipswich etc.

Perhaps, perhaps not, but it is always a tricky one.

I earn a smudgeon under £31,000 a year, for anyone who cares. I spend almost half my take-home pay for a studio in zone three. Prior to that I was in a flatshare, and that was £1400 a month (plus bills) between the two of us.

My partner is moving from the north east to join me in the south east. I work in Islington, her job will be in Amersham. Which one of us lives closer to work?
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One of the ugly realities is that debt collection firms will sell debts of 'Person A' again and again until they're owned by a firm who owns other debts of 'Person A'. They'll then add the new outstanding amount to any debt payment plan they already have in place with the debtor.

They can try, but each debt is legally separate. It doesn't really matter anyway, if people are in such dire financial straits they can either do a Debt Relief Order (smallish debts, no assets) to write everything off, or they can do an IVA to be debt-free in five years.

Debt collection companies have no legal standing whatsoever, they can jump up and down and stamp their little feet but that doesn't give them entitlement to reclaim money. They try to get around this by issuing letters that look very convincing, in an attempt to scare people into coughing up.

Bailiffs do have legal powers, but they can only be instructed if someone gets a court order against you (a CCJ) and you don't comply with it. But even they have limited powers: they can only come in your house if they can gain "peaceable entry", they're not allowed to break in. Therefore you hide your car and don't let them in your house, and there's nothing anybody can do.

 

[fowler9]

One of the ugly realities is that debt collection firms will sell debts of 'Person A' again and again until they're owned by a firm who owns other debts of 'Person A'. They'll then add the new outstanding amount to any debt payment plan they already have in place with the debtor.

I basically refuse to deal with any of them and ignore their scary letters which quite frankly don't bother me in the slightest any more. As soon as I am working again I will take appropriate action to clear my debts.

 

[neilmc]

I recall having a weekend in Yorkshire shortly after the ECML was electrified - even then, hotels and youth hostels(!) in the area were having a bumper time with couples house-hunting in the area with the express purpose of commuting from York to London and having a nice rural cottage for the weekend at a fraction of silly Home Counties prices.

The answer is of course to de-centralise and move as much business as possible to provincial areas but that's easier said than done - my son works in the design industry and almost all major design companies are London-based so they can poach the talent from each other, it would be a brave manager who relocated to Barnsley or Hartlepool as staff might not value the savings in housing and commuting compared to the fear of commercial isolation, however much they whinge about costs in the capital.

 

[W230]

The answer is of course to de-centralise and move as much business as possible to provincial areas but that's easier said than done - my son works in the design industry and almost all major design companies are London-based so they can poach the talent from each other, it would be a brave manager who relocated to Barnsley or Hartlepool as staff might not value the savings in housing and commuting compared to the fear of commercial isolation, however much they whinge about costs in the capital.

This is the answer in a nutshell, IMO. On the whole, people choose to work in London because they want the "dream" job/salary. It's like a magnet to the rest of the country. I moved from the north to London to do a job I wanted to do as the employment prospects were much better. I am sure eventually I will get fed up of the hustle and bustle. But when that day comes I have no intention of commuting and spending £££ and hours of my day getting to work. I'll leave London, move somewhere cheaper and accept that my job will have to change as a result.

In the UK we seem to love to whinge about everything - if you're not happy with the way things are then vote with your feet! Or carry on whinging...

 

[1e10]

Ignoring debt collectors is actually very easy. They tend to try for a while until they realise they are getting no where and then give up. Legally appointed bailiffs are a different matter.

At that point though the problem lies with the debt collection company and not the TOC.

 

[Deerfold]

This is the answer in a nutshell, IMO. On the whole, people choose to work in London because they want the "dream" job/salary. It's like a magnet to the rest of the country. I moved from the north to London to do a job I wanted to do as the employment prospects were much better. I am sure eventually I will get fed up of the hustle and bustle. But when that day comes I have no intention of commuting and spending £££ and hours of my day getting to work. I'll leave London, move somewhere cheaper and accept that my job will have to change as a result.

In the UK we seem to love to whinge about everything - if you're not happy with the way things are then vote with your feet! Or carry on whinging...

I moved back north (West Yorkshire) for family reasons having commuted from Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire into London for 6 years.

6 years later I'm still commuting into London.

I know of 3 people in West Yorkshire who work in my building south of the Thames (possibly 4, I've followed someone who was on my train from Leeds into the office before but I didn't know her or want her to think I was stalking her!). One of them I regularly see on the train. Two of us commute once a week into London, the other does the journey nearly every day. At best, it takes me 3.5 hours door to door going South and 4 hours going North.

I'd love to get a job closer to home but struggle to find one paying 50% of my current salary. One day the balance will change and I'll stop the long journeys.

When I'm in London I usually go budget and stay in Youth Hostels up to half an hour's journey away (or sometimes a 15 minute walk away). I also am lucky enough to get a discount on travel with East Coast and not to have to pay for tube and bus travel in London).

 

[westv]

When I'm in London I usually go budget and stay in Youth Hostels up to half an hour's journey away (or sometimes a 15 minute walk away). I also am lucky enough to get a discount on travel with East Coast and not to have to pay for tube and bus travel in London).

Unfortunately I don't get any EC discount but luckily the current AP tickets I get have worked out to around £50 a week excluding tube. I prefer to be within walking distance of work - 3-4 hours commute each way is enough travelling for me!! My flatshare works out to roughly £45 a night for the time I'm there.
When I first considered doing the Monday morning/Friday evening commute I thought it'd be unsusual but have since found out it's not that uncommon

 

[Deerfold]

Unfortunately I don't get any EC discount but luckily the current AP tickets I get have worked out to around £50 a week excluding tube. I prefer to be within walking distance of work - 3-4 hours commute each way is enough travelling for me!! My flatshare works out to roughly £45 a night for the time I'm there.
When I first considered doing the Monday morning/Friday evening commute I thought it'd be unsusual but have since found out it's not that uncommon

For 3 years I used APs but their availablity dropped dropped on the services I used and I started going down to London Sunday evening and not getting home until after midnight Thursday/Friday which my wife objected to.

This week I've paid £8.99 a night for 3 nights' accommodation

Goes up a bit in summer though

I see a lot of familiar faces on the 0700 and 0715 Leeds to Kings Cross services.

My wife's current work involves her spending 3 nights a week in Buckinghamshire - I don't envy her the drive.

 

[westv]

£8.99 a night? Was it a shed?

 

[W230]

I moved back north (West Yorkshire) for family reasons having commuted from Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire into London for 6 years.

6 years later I'm still commuting into London.

I'd love to get a job closer to home but struggle to find one paying 50% of my current salary. One day the balance will change and I'll stop the long journeys.

So with respect, the extreme commute is the choice you made, weighing up the other options. I totally understand this but am only making the point that people consciously make this choice when taking into account their circumstances and that for you, likewise, if you didn't want to commute then you could move back south/take a huge pay cut - neither probably attractive, admittedly.

 

[yorksrob]

So with respect, the extreme commute is the choice you made, weighing up the other options. I totally understand this but am only making the point that people consciously make this choice when taking into account their circumstances and that for you, likewise, if you didn't want to commute then you could move back south/take a huge pay cut - neither probably attractive, admittedly.

Or we could somehow develop a less centralised economy. I suspect that this might be more beneficial in the long term.

 

[Moonshot]

Or we could somehow develop a less centralised economy. I suspect that this might be more beneficial in the long term.

Absolutely......this would defo be a step in the right direction in order to solve some of the one way traffic issues.

 

[yorksrob]

Absolutely......this would defo be a step in the right direction in order to solve some of the one way traffic issues.

Ah, we agree on some things then

 

[Moonshot]

Ah, we agree on some things then

Lol ...yes !! Investment regionally has to be the way forward...Manchester defo been having a good go at this, but some of the surrounding areas close by have some god awful infrastructure which is in dire need of redevelopment

 

[fowler9]

Lol ...yes !! Investment regionally has to be the way forward...Manchester defo been having a good go at this, but some of the surrounding areas close by have some god awful infrastructure which is in dire need of redevelopment

Manchester having a good go at it was deffo helped by Media City and the BBC getting moved up there. You know, how shall we share the wealth? I know, move bits to the most prosperous parts of the north.

If they'd moved the BBC to Bootle or perhaps Teesside or Carlisle I'd think the government was trying.

Is there any real technological need for banking or telecoms to be in London or Manchester? Nah!

 

[Deerfold]

So with respect, the extreme commute is the choice you made, weighing up the other options. I totally understand this but am only making the point that people consciously make this choice when taking into account their circumstances and that for you, likewise, if you didn't want to commute then you could move back south/take a huge pay cut - neither probably attractive, admittedly.

There's an element of choice for sure, but it make clear that as someone who is well educated and fairly highly skilled my choices are:

Extreme commute
Desert the North for the South.
Accept a job which does not require my skills/education at half the pay.

£8.99 a night? Was it a shed?

Youth Hostel, central Camden, 14 beds in the room (though not all occupied).

I'm paying £10.99 for a place in an 8-bed dorm round the corner this week.

Both places are clean but otherwise short on facilities (shower and bar available ).

 

[Dave1987]

The quality of life in East Anglia makes the commuting worthwhile for many. So many nice places to live, a peaceful retreat from London, but just over an hour from Ipswich on the faster trains when the GEML is behaving itself. Commuting from Stowmarket, Ipswich and Manningtree has increased greatly, just compare a timetable from the 1970's to today's frequency.

The big point on GEML as well especially from Manningtree and Colchester is commuters getting on the busiest, most popular trains of the day like the 07.30 from Colchester just because they are non stop to London. Yet if they went for another that takes 10 mins longer to get to London then they would see there is plenty of room in the rear 3-4 carriages! Same happens with the trains in the evening peak! For everyone to get a seat the trains would need to be 20 odd carriages long. This is one thing that really bugs me about some people.

 

[306024]

Quite agree. Madness to stand for that length of time when there are plenty of alternatives. You won't see me standing

 

[87015]

The big point on GEML as well especially from Manningtree and Colchester is commuters getting on the busiest, most popular trains of the day like the 07.30 from Colchester just because they are non stop to London. Yet if they went for another that takes 10 mins longer to get to London then they would see there is plenty of room in the rear 3-4 carriages! Same happens with the trains in the evening peak! For everyone to get a seat the trains would need to be 20 odd carriages long. This is one thing that really bugs me about some people.

But if everyone who gets the IC sets from Colchester decides to get I the following 321, what are you going to do with all the extra people at Witham and Chelmsford who are now unable to board said 321 because it is crush loaded from Colchester?

 

[306024]

We are not talking about huge numbers of people to cause 'crush loading' from Colchester. And then again there are trains that start from Braintree, Witham and Chelmsford from them if they so chose. Overall there is sufficient capacity for most people to get a seat, providing they don't all aim for the same train, or are prepared to move down the back (or the front in the evening). Different story on the Southend line, getting a seat from Billericay is a bit more difficult.