Town vs Village: who pays more?

Living around Chippenham in some of the rural areas could cost you a whole lot more than urban life, a new report has claimed.

Findings from The Commission for Rural Communities show that those living in villages or remote areas need to ear up to 20 per cent more than city or town dwellers to sustain a decent standard of living.

According to the report someone living in a village needs to earn at least £17,900. That's compared with someone living in a more remote area - so a hamlet or a farm, for example, who needs to earn £18,600.

Anyone living in a town can manage on £15,600, the report says.

So, this leads to two questions. One, what do you think you need to earn to maintain a good standard of living in Chippenham and surrounding areas? 

And what actually constitutes 'rural'? Are we talking about a village like Castle Combe? (Which is expensive anyway) or an outlying hamlet? 

And is Chippenham really rural? We're surrounded by countryside but it's a growing town.

The report's statistics took into account the comparative cost of things like travel; so if you have to go further to the nearest supermarket it'll cost you more.

Also, services like broadband internet can be more expensive in remote areas and energy bills can be higher because of poor connections to mains supplies.

 

Local resident Nick Crane recently moved from London to a remote Wiltshire village. He agrees that living rurally costs more, despite the increased standard of living.

He said: "Things like broadband are a far worse service at a greater cost. Most of the providers who offer free broadband to customers actually charge rural residents around £20 for a lower quality product. In the city my 8mb broadband was free but here my 1mb at best service costs £19 per month and all providers would offer an identical service because the only option I have is via a BT line miles from the exchange. 

"Travel costs more because you do it more often and rural bus fares are very high."

He added: "Recycling here is much less organised and I have to take most of my recycling to a public set of bins about six miles away whereas it all used to be fully collected in the city and for this my Council tax is actually higher despite being in a property which is one band lower."

But on the plus side he says the community feel and beautiful surroundings outweigh any extra costs.

 

So, there's one opinion. What do you think? We know property tends to be more expensive in areas outside of Chippenham. So, a village like Kington Langley will cost you more to live in. But what about day to day. Do you see the difference? Let us know.