Yesterday Stephen Davies or PR Blogger, recently of Edelman London, announced he was heading back to his native North East. Here is his reasoning:
As much as I enjoy working in London, I simply can’t afford to stay here at this moment in my life. It’s an expensive city to live and work in and the purse strings have been tight for some time now. It would take me around four years of living on the breadline to even attempt to buy a garden shed around here.
I’d rather be making an attempt to get on the property ladder where I stand a better chance – at home. Not to say I’ll be able to but I’m going to give it a go. The state of the UK property market is a big worry to those that aren’t on it and the London market is completely saturated whereas the North East’s has potential. I guess I should have made an attempt to get on it a few years ago but I chose to put myself through college and university instead. Don’t regret it one bit though.
This is a real challenge for PR businesses in London and many other cities. Dublin is even worse. In these cities attracting people like Stephen is vital. Young talent like Stephen is the life blood of the creative and professional or financial service businesses that make up the bulk of most European urban economies. Getting affordable housing right is now a crisis issue for London and for many other European capitals where property prices are also on the rise. Frankly, I am very worrried on this score.
[tags] London Property Prices, PR Blogger, Stephen Davies, PR [/tags]
sixtysecondview.blog 
I have lots of sympathy with your and others difficulties. But if you want to really give yourself a fright look at nurses salaries.
We are talking £14.5k – including the London Weighting Allowance as a junior nurse starting out and it does not rise that fast. What if all our essential service providers (usually paid just above minimum wage) headed for the hills?
Just to underline the unfairness check out what MP’s can claim in allowances above and beyond their salaries…
http://www.parliament.uk/about_commons/hocallowances/hocallowances06.cfm
No wonder MP’s have voted to exempt themselves from the Freedom of Information Act when a number were found to have claimed the maximium of £20k for being away from home even though they lived in Outer London or the Shires.
Another notch or two down on your Trust Barometer next year?
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Adrian,
You are absolutely right Adrian which i guess is why Ken Livingstone now insists on a decent proportion of all new housing developments being given over to low cost housing. Also, i see that Gordon Brown has put it high on his agenda. Fact is we need a lot more housing and fast and that means a hard look at planning restrictions. Are you in London too?
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I’ve had it with moving house. I have moved twice in the last two years and lost my job each time! 1st time, I lost my job a month AFTER moving house, this time I lost it 2 weeks BEFORE moving (May 11th to be precise!)
Stephen has got some guts to give his job up, but as I have found recently, some things take priority – and life is one of them.
As Moilere put it – “il faut manger pour vivre et non vivre pour manger”
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Paul,
It happened to me the other way around . . I got made redundant and then had to move countries as my visa was dependent on working. Life is far from certain!
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