There’s no place quite like London

If Michael Gove has his way, there is going to be a shift of power and money away from London and the South East. People will be encouraged to move to new economic hubs in the North, and investment will “irrigate the soil” of regional towns and cities under his levelling up agenda, unveiled this week.

He didn’t quite say that levelling up Britain meant levelling down London, but nails were hammered into the capital’s coffin as he pledged to divert research spending north, and threatened to transfer the House of Lords to Glasgow, although there are no signs, yet, that he will relocate his Department for Levelling Up to his own home town, Aberdeen.

Over at the BBC, they seemed to have got the message. The Today Programme’s Macclesfield born Nick Robinson was broadcasting from Leeds, though plans, mooted in 2020, that he would co-anchor the programme from Salford are still to materialise. 

Meanwhile, his BBC colleague Laura Kuenssberg was said to be considering a move back to her native Scotland when she stands down as political editor in April.

London being over has been the story of the pandemic, as people fled the city in search of bigger houses and greener spaces, equipped with work-from-home garden sheds furnished by furlough hand-outs.

For the first time in decades, the population dropped as an estimated 700,000 Londoners departed, leading to labour shortages and a stagnating property market.

According to a report in the Financial Times last June, “the population reversal, if sustained, could cause London’s house prices to fall, change the composition of the city’s workforce markedly and permanently reconstitute the capital”. 

But that was then. Writing off London appears to have been premature, and though it fell out of fashion last year, estate agents say there are “strong signs that this is on the turn in 2022”.

The Evening Standard reported last month that the number of home offers accepted in November reached a 10-year high, and in central London, the figure was 116 per cent higher than the same month last year. In outer London, there was reportedly a 25 per cent increase.

For those of us who bucked the trend and made the decision to move to London mid-Covid, this is welcome news indeed as it proves we were right and our friends and former neighbours (“what, are you mad?”) were wrong.

At the time, it was hard, for some, to remember that normal life involved going out to pubs, restaurants, theatres, shops — and work. Perhaps they imagined (hoped) that manageable commuting distances belonged to a bygone era, and that their bosses would never want to see them, in the flesh, again.

Now that pandemic panic is in retreat, and we are almost back to where we were two years ago, many who made hasty home moves wish they were too.

One young woman who upped sticks early in the Covid crisis told the Express that she and her partner returned to London after deciding “rural life” (this was St Albans) was not for them. They missed the hustle and bustle and the fewer cultural opportunities in their short-lived escape.

Cultural opportunities? They were lucky. Having spent 18 months in a Scottish glen, 1,000 ft up a hill that was cut off by snow in winter, the lack of cultural opportunities was the least of the pitfalls when I initially swapped London for something more bucolic.

With the nearest town a 20-minute drive away, weather permitting, no mobile signal, and dial-up internet, the only stimulation came from the sprinkling of fellow glenners. This was fine if you all got along with each other, not so if you fell out and your social circle was suddenly reduced from four to three households.

Even in a smallish city, like St Albans, or Edinburgh, which became my home for more than 20 years, cabin fever can set in once the novelty of limited options wears off. I don’t mean the company of my friends, of course, though the larger the metropolis is, the greater the mix. 

I realised it was time to return to London when the concert halls in my northerly outpost remained closed long after lockdown ended, and the best entertainment on offer was only accessible via LNER.

While Covid pushed many people out of the capital’s confines, I found its scale and scope an antidote to pandemic imprisonment. Even when everything was shut, walking beside the Thames brought hope of brighter months ahead.

London may be overcrowded and its traffic a nightmare, but who needs uncongested roads when there are tubes, trains and buses to take you door to door? I’ve used my car about five times since settling back in London just before Christmas.

And far from being a concrete jungle, the city abounds with wildlife; I saw herds of Indian elephants (sculpted from lantana) in Green Park in the summer, and there are parakeets and palm trees in my garden. I even spotted a man in a hot tub in December. 

While the levelling up goal of redistributing London’s largesse may be noble, and a case can be made for any number of fine towns and cities, we do put down our capital at our peril. Post-Covid, it remains not just the jewel in Britain’s crown but the most precious gem in the world.