Morty, doesn't look as if you'll be alone: This from today's Evening Stggers:
Londoners leave city in droves

by Danielle Gusmaroli and Jo Revill
Record numbers of people are turning their backs on London for a better life in the provinces.

High house prices and a declining quality of life forced 230,000 residents out of the capital in the last 12 months, according to figures released by the Office for National Statistics.

Meanwhile, 163,000 moved to London, mostly from the West Midlands, in search of jobs. Overall, though, the population of London continues to grow, swelled by foreign immigration and a high birth rate, especially among the growing ethnic community.

Tower Hamlets was among the most deprived London borough which saw the biggest exodus.

Around 148,000 saw the East of England as a better place to live and set up home there last year, while the South-East saw 230,000 new arrivals and 212,000 departures. The South-West was also viewed as a desirable place to live.

Increasingly, London residents are finding soaring crime rates, congestion and the cost of living intolerable. And most who left last year were families looking for a better quality of life.

The trend has been fuelled by rising property prices in the capital which is encouraging people to cash in and buy cheaper homes in the provinces. In the three months to March, prices in Greater London rose to 81 per cent above the national average, with the average price of property now at £158,000.

The Evening Standard ran a series of campaigns highlighting the problems faced by new teachers, doctors and nurses, who cannot afford to set up home in London.

Professor of population geography at Newcastle University, Tony Champion, said the changing face of the capital's population is due mostly to people coming in from overseas, with an estimated 50,000 foreign settlers arriving into the country each year.

He said: "We now have the highest recorded net immigration to this country ever. And more of it is going to London."

Last year's population was 7.1 million, almost 500,000 more than 20 years ago - but below the peak of 8.3 million in 1951. If current trends continue London's population is predicted to hit the 7.3 million in three years.

Meanwhile, there was more economic bad news for Chancellor Gordon Brown's plans for record investment in public services as new evidence came of growing pessimism among the public over the economy.

A new Mori poll carried out for The Times, which measures how people expect the economy to perform over the next 12 months, has dropped to minus 31, a 16-point fall since the end of July and its lowest level for three years.

Recession fears were further fuelled after the European Central Bank (ECB) cut interest rates by a quarter point to 4.25 per cent. ECB president Wim Duisenberg has warned that the outlook for economic growth in Europe was worse than expected.

Jane Padgham writes: Almost 150,000 London jobs will be lost by the end of next year as the sharp downturn in the City, media and advertising hit the capital's expansion, a new report says. The respected think-tank, the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR), says slower growth will trigger a wave of redundancies throughout London.

The shake-out will come as growth in London's economy lags the national average for the first time since the early-Nineties recession. (c)Evening Standard

RtS