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Claire Rigby checks out the
bottom line realities of the great London vs. Brighton lifestyle
debate
 Just a few years ago, Brighton
used to compare itself favourably with neighbouring Worthing,
Eastbourne and Hastings, and feel smug. Brighton's changing
fortunes recently inspired Eastbourne to go for a piece of the
'English Riviera' action too, with a £100,000 campaign on
London Transport buses and tubes advertising a move to
Eastbourne - 'The Good Life Just Got Better'. In Brighton,
there's little need to advertise The Place To Be to the constant
influx of Londoners who come for days, weekends and sometimes
for life. Perhaps it's their wistful "I'd like to move
down's" (forgotten by East Croydon), or the seduction of
the perfect summer's day in the place where you live that
inspire the local tendency to compare Brighton to London.
Eagerly believing its own press, the comparison is often
considered, at least in Brighton, to favour Brighton, and there
is still a certain smugness.
With a pace of life a couple of
gears down from pulsing London's and a lingering reputation for
the 'alternative', Brighton's starting to think it has it all -
trendy clubs, cool pubs and bars, classy shops - while still
retaining all its original charms and its much-prized history.
"It's got everything London's got, and the sea, and you can
walk across it!" goes the refrain. The town's astonishing
level of exposure in the media has helped to create hype about
the place that can be hard to separate from reality. In a recent
Evening Standard feature on the fifty 'hippest' places in the
world, Brighton - according to the Standard - stands shoulder to
shoulder with Milan and Ibiza, LA and Miami. But is jumped-up
Brighton fooling itself with its flattering self-comparisons to
mighty cousin London, or is life really sweeter or cheaper by
the sea?
A 12,000-strong army of commuters
takes its labour to London every day from Brighton. Malcolm
Prescott, previously from Yorkshire, has lived in Brighton &
Hove for twenty years, and has been commuting to his job as a
programme manager in Fleet Street for eighteen. Despite the
daily trek to The Smoke, he has no regrets for many reasons,
including financial. "It's definitely cheaper to live here
than in London. The difference between the general costs of
living between the two and things like restaurant prices are
probably marginal, but in convenience the difference is huge.
Just getting to the shops here is so much easier: in some London
neighbourhoods, a trip to the supermarket means taking a tube or
a taxi which costs more and takes longer." From leafy
Preston Park, where Malcolm lives with his partner and four
children, it's a short walk to most of Brighton's amenities.
"One of the best things about living here is that you can
happily spend your weekends without having to go far to find
something to do and there are hundreds of times fewer people
when you get there. The cost of giving kids the same
entertainment in London is much higher. We do lots of things
with the children at weekends, and it's cheap - you don't have
to escape to Clapham Common or Hampstead Heath for some air, or
pay out for so much."
Jessica Hearle came to live in
Brighton two weeks ago, first moving to London from Cornwall
four years ago. "London's not a nice place to be,
especially in the summer. Everyone says it's cheaper to live
here and I think rent is a little bit cheaper. It's cheaper to
get into clubs, although the drinks cost about the same. Things
like clothes cost the same here, especially in the High Street
stores, but there's less variety. In London there are £10 and
£5 shops for clothes, which you don't have here, and some of
the boutique-y shops in Brighton are quite expensive."
Jessica has found work in telesales in Brighton for considerably
less money than she was making in London, but from paying £343
a month for a room in a shared flat in Willesden Green she now
pays £275 for her room in a house in the central North Laine.
"In London it would be about four times as much."
The government Land Registry
gives the average price for a one-bedroom flat or maisonette in
Brighton & Hove as £92,452, while a similar property in
Hackney costs £128,275. The average price overall for Brighton
properties is £125,247, and £153,502 in Hackney. But despite
the difference of nearly twenty per cent, substantially lower
average earnings in Brighton mean that residents' ability to buy
a home is reduced while for downsizing Londoners on London
wages, Brighton prices make things that little bit more
accessible.
An online salary conversion site
which calculates what your salary would be anywhere in the UK
based on national and regional average salaries, reckons
£10,000 in Brighton would become £14,046 in Islington.
£15,000 in Brighton becomes £34,870 in the City of London,
while a Londoner earning £25,000 would have to take a drop of
over £7,000, to £17,799, for a life near the ocean wave. Helen
Birnie, manager of Tootsies restaurant in The Lanes, moved from
London two years ago. "I was shocked at the wages when I
arrived. At first, my partner travelled to London every day to
work as an electrician, for even with the £76 a week in fares
he was still making a little more than he would have done here.
Tootsie's is a London-based chain so my salary is the same as in
London, but I know that similar jobs down here pay far less. No
matter how house prices go up, wages don't seem to."
Kate McCarthy, freelance writer,
moved to Brighton last year to live with her boyfriend. "I
though I'd be much better off financially, but I don't find it
that much cheaper to live here. In London I had a job with a
good salary. Now that I live here and am a freelance I earn
less, although I'm not exactly working feverishly, because
Brighton's already got into my bones. But when I first came down
I went into a temp agency looking for secretarial work, which
pays £10 an hour in London, and it was only £6 here. On the
other hand even though most people could earn more in London
than they do here, it probably ends up about the same when you
count the extra costs. Maintaining your working life costs a lot
in London, for things like travel and lunch, and if you want to
go out after work in Brighton you can come home to eat and then
walk to where you're going. In London, eating out and taxis can
cost you another forty quid."
Kate found Brighton's laid-back
reputation well founded compared to the conspicuous consumption
of the high-powered Londoners. "In London, because there
are so many shops and constant advertising, it can be hard to
avoid the extravagant lifestyles that are always being pushed
down your throat and people do spend a lot more. There's much
less pressure to spend here and so much is free, like the
seafront. My job involved a very London lifestyle where what
shoes you wore mattered, but no-one here cares, and I happily go
to Oxfam and the pound shops, which in London I wouldn't have
done." Central London prices are notorious - Kate walked
out of a Soho bar rather than pay £7.50 for a vodka and Red
Bull - but pubs in Hackney, where she lived, had prices closer
to Brighton's. Parking in Brighton was a revelation.
"Buying a 50p voucher to park my car was great - in London
it can cost £12 an hour.
Statistics reveal a jumble of
affordable and expensive in London, with its blend of
metropolitan and suburban. The cost of parking in Brighton's
many NCP car parks varies across town, but in London the
differences are abysmal. Against £13.50 for two to three hours
in London's Finsbury Square NCP car park, two to three hours in
Regency Square costs a mere £2.20. But the same parking time
costs £2.30 at the NCP in Elephant & Castle. The cost of
residents' parking schemes in many London boroughs is similar to
Brighton's. In Camden, a three month permit costs £25, as in
Brighton, while in Wandsworth it's only £17.50.
A trip to see Bridget Jones'
Diary will set you back a tenner at the Odeon Leicester Square
compared to £5.50 in Brighton's Odeon, but only £4.90 in
Barnet, North London. Both London and Brighton have recently
adopted flat fare transport systems. While a pound now takes you
from Falmer to Portslade, London's new bus prices, introduced by
the Mayor's Transport for London department, will take you
across Inner London for a pound. In Outer London, perhaps more
suitable for comparison with Brighton & Hove, the flat fare
of only 70p covers a distance greater than that covered by
Brighton & Hove buses.
A freelance journalist and editor
of the website sorted.com, Annie Auerbach moved from Hove back
to London because of a lack of well-paid journalistic
opportunities in Brighton. "In London I'm paying about
twice as much rent as I was in Hove, but earning about three
times as much, hence it is affordable." Even so, she finds
going out in London expensive. "I wouldn't go out in London
with less than £40 in my pocket, and wouldn't get very far on
that once I'd paid £10 for entry to a club, £20 for drinks and
£10 for cab fares. In Brighton I'd go out with less than half
that in my pocket." But she also said: "There's
something that really bothers me about the whole Brighton vs
London thing. I think Brighton has a real 'London complex'; it's
constantly comparing itself to London in a way that's a hybrid
of resentment and disdain. On the one hand, Brighton kind of
resents London for its cultural oneupmanship and for its higher
wages. But Brighton also looks down on the capital because
Londoners are part of the 'rat race' and have a lower quality of
life due to travelling by tube and pollution.
"The number of times I have
heard Brightonites expound on the horrors of the Tube and the
commercialism of London really surprised me. It's almost as if a
choice to live in one is a conscious thumbs-down for the other.
And these are ideological choices for the average Brightonite.
Living in London is a sell-out, while Brighton is the creative
choice. Why? I chose to live in both places and apart from their
proximity, I don't understand why the two are compared so
much."
Perhaps it's a question of
Brighton believing its own press. But any journey across the
capital on the top of a double decker will demonstrate the
futility and conceit of Brighton & Hove's metropolitan
aspirations. Brunswick's elegant cream yellow terraces are there
but there's a great deal more architectural diversity in London.
A glance around any London street leaves Brighton's 'celebrating
diversity' banner looking a little ragged and visitors to
Brighton might notice the uncommon white homogeneity of the
majority of Brightonians compared with London's rich ethnic mix.
Magnificent London makes upstart Brighton look like a provincial
town in so many ways, its brand new city clothes hanging
awkwardly.
The Very Rich have so far,
luckily, not fallen for Brighton's charms in large numbers. but
perhaps they should be told that for them Brighton is also
cut-price proposition. Tea at the Grand costs a mere £12.50
against the Ritz's £27, while the Grand's most expensive suite
is £615, against the Ritz's £1,850 Berkeley Suite. If rumours
of the fabled new high-speed rail-link between Brighton and
London have any foundation this might help to seal Brighton's
fate as the London Borough of Brighton'n'Hove. But a Connex
South Central spokesman says that it never envisaged such a
thing and thinks it unlikely that new franchisee, GoVia, will
consider reducing journey times more important than pressing
needs for improved safety, more capacity and reliability. He
said "It's probably just been talked up by estate agents in
Brighton." The image of a couple of cunning agents coming
up with the idea, spreading the rumour then repeating it to
buyers, is plausible so let's make it the new rumour. But it has
surely contributed to more than one sale to wavering Londoners.
The phenomenon of Londoners relocating may be real but their
city is still growing faster than anywhere else, at 2.6 per cent
annually. Brightonians still travel to London for fun, culture
and work and Londoners still enjoy Brighton's slap and tickle
and conferences.
Brighton remains a slightly
cheaper place to live than London, although that always depends
on which part of London. Property and rents are generally
cheaper and loose change in the pocket lasts longer down here
than in London. But with wages also lower in Brighton, the
continuing rise of property prices is causing problems for
residents. One of the most obvious solutions to the common
complaint 'Brighton wages, London prices', is to work in London
like the 12,000 who already do and get a London wage to spend in
Brighton. But as some of Brighton's greatest attributes are time
saved on transport, three hours a day on a crowded train may be
too high a price for most.
by Lander Hawes.
The costs of city living
Houses
Three bed terraced House in Queens Park, Brighton: £215,000
Similar in Hammersmith: £450,000 .
Movies
UGC Brighton: Adult £5 after 5pm
UGC Fulham: Adult £8 after 5pm
Buses
Flat fare in Outer London: 70p
Flat fare in Brighton: £1
Shopping
Safeway: 28p Pint of milk,
89p slab of butter, in London
and in Brighton.
Boots 16 Panadol, Brighton: £2.09
Oxford Street: £1.79
Keep Fit
Brighton David Lloyd
Centre: £200.00 Joining fee,
Off Peak £140.00
Kensington David Lloyd
Centre: £295.00 Joining fee,
Off peak £200.00
Driving Lessons
BSM Driving lesson: £18.50
in Brighton.
£20.50 in London.
Tea
Tea at the Grand: £12.50
Tea at the Ritz £27
copyright New Insight 2001
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