Lunchtime news 20 July 2023

Several newspapers have been looking at yesterday’s Court of Appeal ruling where an ex-wife who received a share in her marital home after her divorce 20 years ago now faces being evicted from her home as her former husband faces bankruptcy. The judge ruled that regardless of the terms of the couple’s divorce agreement, the husband’s creditors can demand the sale of the home they once shared to recoup what they are owed.

Britain’s largest mortgage lender Halifax said today the average price of a property in London was now £313,122. At the same time average house prices in the South East breached the £250,000 mark to stand at £259,904. However some regions saw modest falls during the second quarter of the year, with prices dropping by 2.8 per cent in Wales, 1.1 per cent in the West Midlands and 0.4 per cent in the South West.

And yet, the Commission for Rural Communities ’state of the Countryside’ report released today, show that throughout England there has been an exodus of young people out of the countryside and into cities. Nearly 400,000 fewer young people aged 15-29 now live in rural areas compared to twenty years ago.

Perhaps they are all moving to Manchester. The city appears to be reversing the so-called ‘doughnut’ effect – the theory used to describe the depopulation of city centres where residential, business and retail activity is pushed to the outer suburbs and the inner city is left to rot.