Rent: Why are Londoners Moving to Margate?

Once known as a grim and declining coastal town, Margate in Kent is suddenly in the headlines as the new Hipster haven being touted as Britain’s best seaside town. A new set of bearded young Londoners is flocking to take advantage of Margate’s cheap rents and a shared disdain for traffic, cramped city living and “proper jobs”.

Is this a romantic “gap-yah” ideal that will collapse when its enchanted new residents discover there is little to do an no organic supermarket? Or are we witnessing the birth of a true bohemian home akin to Monmartre before the tourists? We will find out soon, and the mainstream press’s new interest in the town means the national will quickly know the verdict on Margate.

Charlie Davies and Jack Higham

Charlie Davies is an 18-year-old aspiring artist who plans to move from Shoreditch to Margate with musician boyfriend Jack Higham, 21, in September 2017. “We want to leave London because its so over-populated which means it can be so expensive and just drains your money and energy,” Davies said. “That makes it weirdly isolating. It’s kind of just become a capitalist hell-hole.”

“We want to move to Margate because it’s by the sea with more space and open landscape. There’s the Turner Contemporary (gallery), which means you’ve still got a good link to the mainstream art world.”

Higham says he struggles with the pace of London. “Margate is much less densely populated, which kind of gives you more space and freedom although there are starting to be some really cool shops and cafes. It’s also close to places like Canterbury and not so far from London, so if you did want to go somewhere more intense you could.”

Davies draws attention to the financial factor in her decision, which reflects the thinking of many young people. “We decided on Margate over other cheap places because we have friends down there and we’ve got other friends who want to move down there with us.” Higham is convinced that this “will give us loads of opportunity to start and encourage a sick music scene with all our friends, as lots of us are in bands or produce music.”

How Cheap and Why?

A one bedroom flat (left) with living room and kitchen is on Rightmove for just £475 per month. To cover that, by working an average of seven hours a day on the adult minimum wage of £7.50 per hour, a single person would only have to work nine days each month to cover the whole rent themselves.

That makes a hell of a difference compared to London’s typical £800 per month for a cupboard with a shared bog. The economic difference between Margate and London is stark. The surrounding district of Thanet had an average annual salary for 2014-15 of a meagre £20,882 according to Kent Online, with people in the neighbouring counties Dover and Canterbury earning almost 30% more.

Compare that with the City of London’s median for the same period of £48,023 and the low cost of living in Margate makes sense. The correlation between low incomes and strong voting support for the UK Independence Party may also help to explain UKIP’s past success in Thanet, where it held its only council majority from 2015-17. Party leader Paul Nuttall said during a visit to Margate last month that the area was “the heart of UKIP”.

Artistic Regeneration

It is easy to criticise young people from privileged urban backgrounds heading to areas made affordable by unemployment. Artists and commentators such as Grayson Perry in his Reith Lecture “Playing to the Gallery” say this is a common pattern.

Artists by definition cannot be expected to pay high rents and produce work without some form of patronage – whether that be by succesfully selling art or working for someone else. Anyone who says these young people are bucking the trend to simply laze about a seaside town for a few years should look to the equally idle bohemians of the 19th and early 20th Centuries for whom poverty was eventually rewarded with artistic fame.

What about when Margate peaks?

Clearly with this all this attention it will not be long before more people follow and the counter-cultural turns posh. If the local scene continues to thrive Margate is sure to be gentrified as wealthier people are drawn to its rustic and artistic popularity, just as they are to Camden Town (left) or Brixton.

Davies intends to stay for “as long as it is cheap and exciting and we enjoy it”, while Jack looks to the future. “We kind of want to move out of the UK at some point, so Margate’s a great place to be, as it’s so cheap, so really enables us to save up for the future and gives us way more prospect of actually being able to do that.”

Davies is quick to assert they are not “gentrifiers” taking a London upbringing to the once destitute town. “We’re definitely not trying to push anyone else out. We’re just kind of being pushed out of London by the crazy prices.”

Now that the secret is out Rightmove reports house sale prices in Margate over the past year were a dramatic 13% up on the previous year as home buyers invested in this new growth. That means anyone tempted by a carefree life by the sea needs to act quickly before the tide comes in.

by Stewart Vickers @VickHellfire

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