Blog Post

How the pandemic has made rural life more appealing than ever

 

People pay a premium to live in cities to be closer to work, entertainment, and amenities. But with more people working from home than ever before, is city life still worth the cost?

 

I live on a rural hill farm just north of Peebles in the Scottish Borders. It's been observed, with teasing mirth by friends and colleagues in the city, that my life looks a little eccentric from their perspective: chickens, ducks, guinea fowl, cats, vegetable patches, onion garlands, taking the bus an hour to get anywhere, no Uber, no Just Eat, no 24-hour shops... and a painfully slow broadband connection. The way I live is something of a novelty for many of them — quaint, yet odd — and not something they'd ever seriously consider for themselves.

Lately, however, the advantages of city life are not quite so obvious. The lockdown saw friends of mine trapped in one-bedroom flats in Edinburgh and Glasgow, trying their best to work in cramped quarters with their partners, setting up "desk space" on ironing boards between their beds, their laundry horses, and their bikes. They have no garden and very little privacy. They may have every modern convenience on their doorstep, and be able to order Thai or Japanese food at the touch of a button, but long for something else their lifestyle cannot bring them: Peace. Fresh air. Space. Quiet.

There are loads of advantages to living in a city when you're in your 20s and 30s. They are nearly all about advancing your career and having an enriching social life. But with the average rent for a two-bed property in Edinburgh now approaching £1000 a month , the cost of buying but a pipe dream for many, and now a pandemic that's made working from home the norm for thousands of people, it's understandable that urban-dwellers are asking themselves: is city life still worth the cost?

Scottish Government statistics show that the average rent for a two-bedroom property in the Borders is £490 a month. Your money literally goes twice as far here. It makes sense to consider the cost of commuting to Edinburgh (£200-250 a month) alongside Borders rent, but what if commuting costs are significantly reduced thanks to home working, or taken out of the equation altogether? It's a game changer.

It's not all plain sailing out here in the hills. The biggest barrier to effective home-working for me has been a slow internet connection. With a typical download speed of 2Mb/s and upload speed of 0.8Mb/s, it's just about enough to manage a work meeting on Microsoft Teams, or a Zoom quiz with my family, but if you try and do anything as wild as streaming music or checking your emails at the same time, it all comes to a shuddering halt. Watching Netflix is hit-or-miss, and a smooth connection seems to depend on whether the neighbours are checking their emails or not. Thankfully that's now being addressed by the Scottish Government, though. Superfast is already available to most people in the area, just not the farm dwellers like me, but the R100 Programme commits to bringing "every home and business" "superfast broadband of 30 Megabits per second" by the end of 2021 in the South of Scotland. That's more than enough for a buffer-free Netflix binge and certainly enough for those work calls. But what about the other stuff?

Public transport is, and always has been, an issue in rural Scotland. Infrequency of services has only been exacerbated by the pandemic, with some operators drastically cutting their timetables back, and relatively high per-mile fares compared to urban public transport routes have led many to conclude that you need a car to live here. From my rural home on a hill farm, I do use my car a lot - but it's perfectly possible to adapt to the bus timetable with a bit of planning. Why would you need a bus going past your front door every seven minutes when with careful planning, a choice of eight buses a day will get you where you need to go? It's true there's been something of a short-term issue locally with the early cessation of evening services between Edinburgh and Peebles, but that's something I've successfully campaigned on and it will improve in the weeks and months ahead.

When it comes to getting the messages, we have two decent-sized supermarkets in Peebles, plus a very popular butcher, baker, fishmonger, greengrocers, a bottle shop and lots more. Boutiques, homeware and gift shops there are aplenty. Then there's the street markets on Thursdays and Saturdays. And if you absolutely must buy something in the middle of the night, there's a 24 hour giant supermarket only 25 minutes away in the car. If the two local Indian restaurants, the award-winning Italian, two Chinese takeaways, chip shops, multiple Scottish restaurants, cafés and bars don't whet your appetite, you can get your gastronomic fix by just hopping on in to our capital city, which is only 45 minutes away in the car, or an hour's scenic bus journey.

I know what you're thinking. "That's great, Simon, but isn't it all just a bit... boring?" In a word: No. The sense of community in small towns is something that's often overlooked by those from elsewhere, and taken for granted by those who live here. Do you like cycling? We have roads. Mountain-biking? The world-renowned Glentress Forest and Innerleithen, part of the 7Stanes Moutain Biking Centres in the Tweed Valley. Walking? Well, do I really need to convince you? Let's just say there a lot  of places to walk. Swimming? Pool, or Gladhouse Reservoir, or St Mary's Loch. Gym? Check. Cinema? Eastgate Theatre— a community-run facility that's become a real hub of activity over the years. Singing? Several choirs. Languages? Local classes exist for French, German, Spanish, Italian and more... and let's not forget the popular Peebles French Conversation Group, which meets every Wednesday (okay, Covid's been a bummer) in the Bridge Inn. If anything, there is too much  choice of things to do. And that's before you even consider the proximity of Edinburgh, and other Borders towns.

On Friday last week, I closed my laptop after work, pulled on my walking boots, and headed up Cademuir Hill. It's one of the many beautiful, remote summits than encircle Peebles and illuminate like a crown at sunset. Within 10 minutes of finishing work, I was on my way through thick heather, geese soaring high overheard. Half an hour later and I was at the top of the hill, sitting on a rock and watching the October afternoon turn to evening. To the south, the haunting beauty of the silent Hundleshope Heights. To the west, Manor Valley and the silver, sleepy River Tweed. To the north, the distant Pentland Hills shrouded in mist and nearer, the Meldons, and to the east, Peebles and my home. There's a sense of serenity and pride that comes with living in this historic part of Scotland. I can't say it's unique, but Peeblesshire is certainly special.

So we've now established that living in the Borders is much cheaper than living in Edinburgh; it's well connected to Edinburgh by public transport, and by car; there's loads of choice in terms of entertainment, shopping and eating out; and you're living in the heart of nature. I was going to continue, but you get the picture.

I come now to my point: why would anyone want to pay the eyewatering rent of a city flat when they can live in this nearby rural paradise instead? Or, as our Borders son Sir Walter Scott said to the visiting American author Washington Irving in 1817, upon hearing Irving describe our local scenery as "grey and monotonous" —

"It may be partiality, but to my eye, these grey hills and all this wild border country have beauties peculiar to themselves. I like the very nakedness of the land; it has something bold, and stern, and solitary about it. When I have been for some time in the rich scenery about Edinburgh, which is like ornamented garden land, I begin to wish myself back again among my own honest grey hills; and if I did not see the heather at least once a year, I think I should die!”

Share by: