Gentrification

Overheard while Hay was cleaning out the shoe box:

Hay: "Do you want to keep your Christopher Biggins daps?"

Chairman: "They're not my Christopher Bigginses - they're my Timmy Mallets."

We went to Frome on Sunday. Hayley lived there in her 20s and the place was a dump - high unemployment, high drug usage, etc.

In the last 10 years, since we first started going there on day trips, we've noticed that the place is being transformed and becoming gentrified. Lots of artisan shops selling weird (in a good way) items, restaurants specialising in good food at reasonable prices, independent, designer furniture, that kind of thing.

This is the passage where Hay had a house - No.10 on the left at the top. She bought it for about £15k and lost it when interest rates went to 15%. They're now selling for £360k plus.

Even the hairdressers' shops are hipster - look at this stuff in one high-end ladies' hairdresser:

Hay thinks we should open a hipster, pop-up, trifle bistro there...

The key is to watch down-and-out places and see when the art community moves in. They tend to start off the process of gentrification, as they can only afford cheap housing. Then the artisans move in, and before you know it, these places become a hive of community activity and spirit with property prices sky-rocketing as the hipsters and yummy-mummy brigade move in.

There are numerous places around Manchester that are similar - like Padiham. The signs are there already.They benefit from rail links to central Manchester for work, but are far enough out to be surrounded by countryside, with property prices anyone can afford. Investors are already snapping up properties for under £60k and converting them to nice flats. Still quite rough at the edges, but these old mill towns are due for some cheering up.

Speed Awareness Course this morning - the one I turned up a month early to in February...