Over 5,000 Londoners have moved to Brighton and Hove in just one year, according to an analysis of official figures.
The scale of the migration from London, fuelled in part by comapatively low house prices in the city, was set out in The Guardian newspaper today.
Birmingham was the only place with a greater number of people settling following their flight from the capital.
The report asserted that London councils were also placing hundreds of homeless people in areas outside of the capital in an effort to curb the drastic and disturbing increase in rough sleeping.
The newspaper said: “The trend is causing social tensions with incomes branded DFLs – down from London – by locals who resent the impact on house prices when property-rich arrivals outbid each other.”
Hove MP Peter Kyle has spoken on the subject in the House of Commons.
The Guardian report quotes Oxford University professor, and prolific author of ‘Inequality and the 1%’, ‘Why Demography Matters’, ‘All That Is Solid’, and ‘The Equality Effect’, Danny Dorling describing the damage done to communities by the scale of “internal immigration”.
He said: “Creating a sense of community again will take a long time and requires two or three generations to be able to stay in one place.
“The immigrants who have the greatest effect on life in England are internal immigrants, English-born affluent people with a large deposit.”
The report added: “The wider internal migration data reveals some notable well-worn longer migration routes.
“People leaving Hackney were more likely to head to Bristol than anywhere else while people leaving Kensington and Chelsea were most likely to end up in Oxford.
“And you are more likely to bump into a new DFL from Lambeth in Brighton than from any other London borough.”
The article, which was published online yesterday, can be read here.
The exodus from London is expected to drive up property prices in areas effected and many Brighton locals bemoan the city’s developing status as a Shoreditch overflow, but the recent patterns of migration have brought an increased level of disposable income that Brighton and Hove’s small and independent businesses will surely enjoy.
How do you feel about the changing demography in the city?
