One of the homes listed for sale for just £15,000 in the old mining town of Ferryhill sits on a quiet red-brick street overlooking a green expanse. There are certainly no superficial reasons why this tidy road, sandwiched between two blocks of new-build properties, would have bargain basement prices.
But, according to consistent past research by Halifax Bank, the data is clear; Ferryhill in County Durham is consistently the UK’s “most affordable market town”.
A couple of doors down from a home the Express found listed for £15k online, neighbours Jane and Gavin Fraser have a theory on why prices are so low.
“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.
“They just have anybody to live there and it just brings the area down,” she added. “I can’t say it’s everybody, but a lot of people who’ve moved in are like that.”
On other streets in the town, similar claims are made; that it has become a “dumping ground” for residents few places would want to welcome.
Nevertheless, the low prices and rolling countryside is encouraging buyers from hundreds of miles away to Ferryhill.
The Frasers themselves relocated from Woodham in Surrey and are far from the most distant relocation.
“One of the neighbours moved up from Dorset,” Gavin added. “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.”
During the Covid-19 lockdown when travel was limited and we were all encouraged to stay at home, the Frasers said the town was an oasis of calm.
The couple used to sit out on the front step and enjoy the fresh air, talking to neighbours at a safe distance.
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.
“Public transport in County Durham is atrocious,” Gavin continued. “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.
They believe it would enable people to work in an array of other cities given how swift the train to London from Durham is.
Not that they are planning to move away any time soon.
“We moved here to get away from the rat race,” Gavin adds, and, so far, they haven’t looked back.
Do you have an interesting story about a small town? Contact zak.garnerpurkis@reachplc.com
