While proximity to a Waitrose is essential for many house-hunters, a high street where you can pop into your local for a pint and enjoy leisure facilities is key
By Zoe Dare Hall
Where once it was the sight of a Waitrose that lit up house-buyers’ eyes, reassuring them that this must be a desirable place to live, now it’s a local pub that’s the most prized “local amenity”, according to research by Jackson-Stops.
“They say that having a dog makes a home, but perhaps for British homeowners having a pub makes the perfect community,” according to the estate agency’s chair, Nick Leeming. His findings echo those of the British Beer and Pub Association’s Long Live the Local campaign: that more than a third of house-hunters rank a good local pub above gyms, places of worship or even schools.
Many will beg to differ. Now that we’re all less monogamous in our supermarket choices, swayed by deals and spiralling food costs, homebuyers may be as happy with a handy Aldi these days. Maybe it’s the sight of a Gail’s bakery rather than a Greggs that helps to sell houses — or the more practical concerns of having a local doctor’s surgery, post office or that rarest of beasts, a bank.
“In Oxted in Surrey, which attracts a lot of London families, a new private GP practice called the Well Life Clinic is big news as buyers want these services locally that they would otherwise have to commute into central London for,” says Melanie Attwater, an independent Surrey-based estate agent.
What most agree on is that a thriving high street makes for a happier, closer community, with just over half of UK adults saying that it’s essential when choosing a home, and 28 per cent claiming they would move if a great local high street were nearby, according to research by the specialist lender Market Financial Solutions.
Last year, more than 10,000 stores closed on UK high streets, opening up opportunities for more experiential offerings, including restaurants, leisure activities and health centres, according to the House of Lords’ Built Environment Committee’s High Street: Life Beyond Retail report that was released last month.
To reverse high street decline, says Lord Moylan, the committee’s chairman, “they need to look beyond being simply a destination for shoppers. Retail will always be important, but people want to see a variety of businesses and other services such as NHS diagnostic centres and libraries on their high street.”
So what are the new linchpins of a happy, healthy high street that persuade property buyers to move in?
Why you can’t beat a local boozer
It’s tricky to put a price on having a great local pub, but Bruce King, director at Cheffins estate agency in Cambridge, estimates that properties in the village of Ickleton — whose community-owned pub, The Ickleton Lion, is “a real linchpin”, he says — command a price premium of 10-15 per cent over neighbouring villages. The village’s independent shops, post office “and a great social club” add to its appeal, King says.
In north Norfolk’s gastro-pub golden triangle, which includes Holt, home to the Michelin-starred Morston Hall, “buyers see living near one as a chance to live the aspirational North Norfolk lifestyle. It’s about being close to the very best,” says Tom Goodley, the head of Strutt & Parker for Norfolk.
And in Bristol, “The Kenny”, as locals fondly call the Kensington Arms in Redland, is about more than its cuisine. “It has a welcome, local-first ethos,” says Jerome Lartaud, the co-founder and director of Domus Holmes Property Finder. “A good pub remains an anchor point for many buyers, but the focus has shifted towards pubs that foster community.”
Membership clubs
Forget stuffy, old gentleman’s clubs. The new breed of membership club is more accessible, affordable and relevant to a post-Covid crowd wanting to combine flexi-working with fitness, childcare or simply avoiding the tedium of working from home.
David Lloyd health clubs are now full of people veering between laptop and spinning class. “The one in Westbury-on-Trym in Bristol in particular has become surprisingly pivotal in buyer decisions,” Lartaud says, while Joseph Antoniazzi, the sales and marketing director of Barratt West London, adds that “a new David Lloyd in an area is most definitely a symbol of regeneration”.
In the Cotswolds, “the world’s ultimate neighbourhood club cluster”, according to Knight Frank estate agency, vendors will try to capitalise on their proximity to clubs such as Estelle Manor, The Club by Bamford and Soho Farmhouse, even when they are up to 60 miles away. Knight Frank also finds that properties within a 15-minute drive of Soho Farmhouse have more than twice the number of interested buyers as those in adjacent areas and sell twice as fast as properties more than five miles away.
“Ten years ago, private clubs wouldn’t have been a consideration for buyers outside London or the Cotswolds. Now these clubs are appearing across the country,” says Edward Brassery of Strutt & Parker in Stamford, Lincolnshire. He pinpoints Woolfox in nearby Rutland, “a modern wellness club that fits perfectly into the lifestyle of today’s buyers. Stamford and Rutland are often likened to the Cotswolds, so it’s no surprise that such a club has found its home here.”
Lighthouse Social, which opens on the riverfront in Fulham, west London, next March, typifies the new generation of membership clubs for the local community, says Jamie Caring, founder of Sevengage, a consultancy that specialises in community building. “Our focus is on creating a genuine ‘third space’ where there’s no pressure to dress to impress or prove how connected you are. It’s about connecting with friends and neighbours, shared proximity and experience. I like to use the ‘broken car’ analogy: if your car breaks down, a neighbour is far more likely to step in and help, simply because you share that connection of living in the same place.”
Schools
We all know about class wars — school classes that is. The skullduggery among parents knows no bounds, such as renting flats they don’t live in, or feigning temporary separation to secure an address in the catchment area of their desired school.
But when you’re weighing up the factors that point to one house purchase over another, being near a great school isn’t just the cherry on the cake; it’s the key ingredient that you can’t bake the cake without. And parents will pay premiums of 10-20 per cent for a house within a hallowed catchment area — not that a school place is ever guaranteed.
Having a great school on your doorstep comes with wider benefits beyond the quality of its education, however. You can walk there. Your child’s friends all live nearby. And the school plays an important social role in the local community. “Any community is a series of connections, which evolve easily if you have kids in the same class,” says Edward Church, head of Strutt & Parker in Kent, who cites the village primary school in Challock, and the variety of schools in Sandwich, including Sir Roger Manwood’s, as being fundamental to creating a close sense of community.
“There’s a snowball effect too — you then meet other families at sports clubs or Brownies. If you send your child away to school, they make different connections but they don’t interlink,” adds Church. “It also helps with the planning process. Planners want new homes to be built where there are existing facilities, and if the local school is thriving, that leads to more houses, which means the school and village continues to thrive. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
Butchers, bakers and cappuccino makers
For Chris Dietz, president of Leading Real Estate Companies of the World, Gail’s bakery — purveyors of the £4.50 Christmas bun — is “the northern star sign of gentrification”. Nina Harrison, at Haringtons, a London buying advisory, begs to differ. “For me, Gail’s has become rather passé. True bragging rights now belong to neighbourhoods boasting a genuinely independent coffee shop — one that’s not poised to roll out 60 identikit branches funded by private equity in the coming months.”
This butter-laden new pillar of high street aspiration may be a polarising one (Walthamstow, Brighton and Worthing are among the locations to object to the opening of a Gail’s), but it’s undeniably popular. “Despite the opposition, it has people queuing out the door whenever I walk by,” says Emily Smart, a 31-year-old account director who lives in Walthamstow, northeast London — which has plenty of independent alternatives on offer too, including coffee shops Hucks and Ruttle & Rowe, and the Cantonese/British bakery Lucky Yu, whose devotees track its ad hoc opening times on Instagram.
This sense of identity that such shops foster is a big part of the attraction for young buyers in Pocket Living’s Forest Road E17 development, where flats start at £300,000. “Our residents often talk about it being a very chilled but buzzy place to live, with a strong sense of community. People look out for one another here,” says Jenny Anson, Pocket Living’s head of sales.
Nowhere does indie quite like Bristol, though. “Many of the most successful businesses are local brands, such as Fed café or Bristol Loaf, and we talk to buyers as much about the lifestyle of the area — which park they’ll go to with their cappuccino and cockapoo on Saturday morning — as the property they’re looking at buying,” says Nick Stopard, the founder of Boardwalk, an independent (of course) estate agency.
Buyers in nearby Bath prize a similarly alternative vibe. “I’ve noticed more than ever the appeal to buyers of lifestyle-driven hotspots — places where you can stroll to an artisan bakery like Landrace or join a sunrise yoga session at Combe Grove,” says Peter Greatorex, the managing director of Peter Greatorex Unique Homes. “It’s often these distinctive touches that seal the deal, far more than big-name amenities.”
And finally, the new Waitrose …
… is still Waitrose. “Buying property near a Waitrose is definitely a key selling point,” says Camilla Dell, the managing partner at Black Brick buying agency, which focuses on the prime end of the London market.
Robin Edwards, partner at Curetons, a London-based buying agency, cites the panic of one client who was relocating to the countryside. “I had to check that both Ocado and Waitrose would deliver to any property I showed them. We’ve never experienced that devotion with any other supermarket chain,” he says. “Aldi is opening in Fulham Broadway, which you’d never have imagined possible a few years ago. But handy as they are, I can’t say any of our buyers have ever got excited by an Aldi or Lidl.”
