Renting a home in Greater London is now 85% more expensive than anywhere else – the largest difference ever recorded!
Average rents in the capital have increased by 8.4% over the past year and now stand at £1,260 per month, whilst across the UK the average cost of renting a home now stands at £789 per month representing a 2% increase on the same period last year.
The majority of regions, however, have seen either a decrease or minimal increase in average rents during the past 12 months. Regions that saw the largest drop are the North East and South West where rental costs lowered over the same period by 2.6% and 2.4% respectively.
I try to keep this blog tightly on the subjects of Pimlico, Renting, and Flats. It’s not too difficult because I can use the Forum to ramble about other subjects, and this keeps the blog focussed.
I thought that I would stray a little to talk about this blog, and blogging, as a way of thanking my many sources of information, and I have broken the story into three parts.
I try to focus on free and little published events and attractions, as the bigger professional things are generally commercially advertised and known about. My biggest source of information is the weekly publication The Pimlico News and Journal which is something that I publish myself and is automatically curated from various feeds. It has been sufficiently successful that I now carry it as a page on this website which can be accessed from the menu on the left.
It’s a great Newspaper but I must give thanks to some of the contributors. There are of course the usual traditional sources of information, BBC, Newspapers, but the purpose of niche blogging is to uncover the real story, and here are the local blogs and websites which I follow in order to reach the news other blogs can’t reach:
London Blogs
Foremost has to be the Westminster Chronicle just because we need professional journalists and local newspapers in our lives, and if you don’t use them and pay for them we will lose them, and be all the poorer. I don’t know how the power of the internet will pan out, but printed news is under pressure from free blogs like this, and the free “Pimlico News and Journal” that I just promoted. In spite of my competition with the Chronicle all I can say is that we need our local shops, and newspapers, so please buy a copy from your local newsagent.
Londonist a website about London and everything that happens in it – it’s a professional publication set up in 2004 as The Big Smoker. I like it because, although it is a comprehensive London-wide reference resource, it carries this off with humour and is in touch with it’s community roots (e.g. the Hand Drawn Maps initiative). They provide everything you need to know about the capital, as well as celebrating the quirks, eccentricities, hidden and surprising bits that make up the alternative side of the city.
Discovering London – which I juxtapose alongside Londonist because Peter’s blog is small, if not tiny, yet it is brimming over with personality, quality, and originality. Peter has yet to reach his 1st anniversary of blogging, but already his website is one of my favourites.
Tired of London, Tired of Life began in October 2008 as a place to document those moments of inspiration for making living in London exciting & different. Doing the same thing day after day can get anyone down, but our city has an almost infinite number of things to see and do. If you’re not getting the most out of London, it is a sad truth that you have no one to blame but yourself. This site was part of a personal plan for the author to get the most out of the greatest city on earth, and it has worked.
Going Underground Look at what the mainstream press has to say! The magic, mystery & sometimes maddening shortcomings of London’s Tube are documented with love, enthusiasm & sometimes despair by its unofficial social historian ……. The best blogs have a tinge of obsession about them … On some mornings it can feel like the only reason to be grateful that the Tube exists … one of London’s obsessives
Young and Poor Cheap/free events, gigs, food & drink, or sales — never paid to mention things so it’s only things worth recommending.
Ian Visits does NOT list the mainstream music/theatre/film events which are already so well supplied by the major newspapers and magazines – but DOES list the heritage open days, walking tours and mostly, the astonishing array of free (or cheap) lectures that the societies and universities of London provide. It’s a personal resource of remarkable usefulness.
Boris Watch An act of frustration, at the loss to apparent personality politics, and the accusation that somehow young people are to blame …… but also a great tap into the stories that THEY don’t want you to read about.
Laura Porter London-based travel writer & VisitBritain Super Blogger, mum, copywriter, tea drinker, afternoon tea addict & all-round London obsessive. She is a professional travel writer for About but I have recommended her twitter feed as she is a model in how to use Social Media. She does so much more than just promote her own writing, and is very generous with the links and information that she publishes. Consequently I would say – if you want to keep your finger on the pulse of mainstream London – follow Laura.
Now publishing any list of recommendations is always fraught – you forget someone important, offend others, and no doubt there are excellent resources that I am yet to stumble across. I have tried to give an honest account of how I produce the Pimlico Blog, but by no means would I say that it is perfect. I would be delighted if readers add their own suggestions in the comments of websites and blogs that we should all be reading and following.
Here’s a brilliant idea, & a demonstration of British generosity and kindness to strangers and foreigners. Spareroom.co.uk is a website which specialises in advertising rooms for lodgers in a homeowner’s property, and it has been flooded with offers after the website posted a request to users asking if they would be willing to offer their spare rooms to stranded travelers until the UK’s airports reopened. Hundreds of homeowners throughout the UK have been contacting flat and house share website to offer their spare rooms on short-term lets to people who have been unable to fly home because of the continuing Icelandic volcano ash cloud drama.
With the majority of major airports across the UK still closed, and with no clear end in sight, thousands of stranded holidaymakers and people on business trips, have been forced to extend their stays. For many visitors, they are faced with mounting costs for every additional day they have to remain in the UK. The situation is particularly bad for people stuck in Central London, where hotel room rates are extremely high and there is a scarcity of available rooms. Central London room rates are typically around £80 to £100 a night, which means an extra week stay at £100 a night could cost one person an additional £700.
With the average private room rent in London on average £134 a week, by staying in a spare room for a week rather than a hotel, stranded visitors could save at least 81% on accommodation costs. Pimlico Flats rent short term Studio Double Flats for £600/week which is about half the local rate, but we don’t have any availability until next week. Click on the logo to go the the page Spare Room have created to deal with the disaster
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