Forget about the countryside, now people are swapping city life for the seaside
With news the population of London is shrinking during lockdown, Anna Hart talks to those heading to the coast for a new lease of life
Lockdown has meant the desire to make that dream move to the coast has intensified
Tech founder and writer Deborah Coughlin and her partner Steve Bricknall, a TV executive, had dreamed of moving to the Welsh coast for years. “But our income relied on us being in an office in London every day,” Coughlin explains. “The pandemic changed this almost overnight.”
With all their work immediately going online, city ties were severed: last summer, the couple, both 40, moved to Laugharne, Camarthenshire – marking them among the 700,000 Londoners to leave mid-pandemic. But while the exodus to country towns has been well documented, it is in fact the seaside that is providing the biggest pull for those fleeing the capital.