Gráinne Gilmore, head of residential research at Knight Frank, the estate agency, says that a number of factors are at play when people choose to leave cities. These include seeking a better education for their children and wanting a better lifestyle. Other analysts suggest escaping urban crime and pollution also play a part.
“Affordability is often a factor for those deciding to move, but other key considerations include education, lifestyle and employment,” she said. The Times has highlighted the dangers of soaring urban pollution through its Clean Air for All campaign.
As such, the areas with the biggest population inflows are overwhelmingly market towns, such as Tewkesbury in Gloucestershire, which gained 20 people for every 1,000 residents last year, and affluent amenity-rich communities such as Stratford-upon-Avon (a gain of 19 for every 1,000) and the Cotswolds (16).
Daniel Bentley, editorial director at Civitas, the think-tank, says that the figures showed that people were falling out of love with urban living. “What this tells us is the cost of living in cities is, for the existing UK population at least, increasingly unjustified by the advantages of living in them,” he said.
Charlie Wells, managing director of Prime Purchase, a buying agency, agreed: “You will get more space for your money in the country, more freedom for your children and more variety and style of property.”
Despite the urban exodus, the figures do not mean that urban populations are going down overall. The ONS migration figures only take into account people who move from one local authority in England and Wales to another, so they exclude migrants arriving from overseas, who continue to drive up the populations of all cities, particularly London. They also exclude natural changes such as births or deaths.
“Those who are moving out are mostly being replaced by overseas migrants who clearly do feel it is worth their while moving in,” Mr Bentley said. “I suspect a critical reason for this is that migrants tend to be more willing to compromise on housing space than existing residents who are moving out.”
Aneisha Beveridge, head of research at the estate agency Hamptons International, said that many residents leaving cities were now skipping over local suburbs and instead buying bigger homes further out with the intention of making a long-term move. “They are moving further out, trying to buy the biggest house that they can, because they won’t be able to move again for a long time. A lack of affordability is literally knocking rungs off the property ladder.”
She agreed with research last year by Savills, the estate agency, which suggested that going forward homeowners were likely to move once every 14 years rather than every nine — as had been the case before the 2007 financial crisis — because moving house was too expensive.