Inside the UK's cheapest market town - where 'desolate' homes sell for just £15k
The UK's most affordable market town has been revealed.
According to research by Halifax Bank, Ferryhill in County Durham is consistently the UK's "most affordable market town" - with one house on sale for just £15,000.
Residents have theories why this old mining town would have such bargain prices. Neighbours Jane and Gavin Fraser said: "Some of these places [inside] are really desolate,” explained Gavin. “Landlords buy them and don’t fix them up for years.
“There’s a place just round the corner which has just been bought and absolutely gutted because the previous tenant didn’t spend a penny and the landlord didn’t. So when you drive through and see a few really c****y places that’s what really brings down the area.”
His wife Jane, a Ferryhill native, claims that the quality of housing also impacts who settles in the town, with landlords showing the same disregard for the tenants they select to live in their properties. She said: “They just have anybody to live there and it just brings the area down. I can’t say it’s everybody, but a lot of people who’ve moved in are like that.”
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On nearby streets, similar claims are made - that the area has become a "dumping ground" for residents few places would want to welcome. Despite that, the friendly prices and open countryside is tempting buying from hundreds of miles away to Ferryhill.
According to residents, houses are being bought up by landlords but not worked on (Andy Commins / Daily Mirror)The Frasers themselves relocated from Woodham in Surrey and are far from the most distant relocation. Gavin said: “One of the neighbours moved up from Dorset. They just got priced out of the market, there’s others from London. We always wonder how everybody gets to know about a little place called Ferryhill.”
The Daily Express reported that during the Covid -19 lockdown, the Frasers said the town was an oasis of calm. The couple used to sit outside and chat with neighbours in the fresh air while maintaining a safe distance.
On nearby streets, similar claims are made - that the area has become a "dumping ground" for residents few places would want to welcome (Andy Commins / Daily Mirror)But the town’s relative isolation, which was a benefit during the pandemic, is one of the other huge challenges the Frasers feel brings the town down. The local train station was closed around 60 years ago meaning public transport involves a lengthy and often unreliable trek to somewhere with better connections.
MPs and local councillors have been arguing for greater investment in the area for years, but little to change the situation of those in Ferryhill has been forthcoming.
Some properties are "desolate" (Andy Commins / Daily Mirror)“Public transport in County Durham is atrocious,” Gavin told The Daily Express. “The bus round here comes once an hour and it will take you an hour to get you to Durham or Darlington. Everyone here has cars and that’s how you’ve got to live.”
The couple have met with their local MP in a bid to change that by reopening Ferryhill station, which once was the busiest goods yard in Europe.
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