My young family is not so young any more — unexpectedly, and despite a rigorous vitamin and protein-free diet, our children appear to be growing with every passing year, which is making our flat suddenly seem quite cramped.
Much of our family chat now revolves around the big house we’d like to move to one day, as the children dream of spectacular hi-tech bedrooms, a swimming pool and slides between floors, while us parents fantasise about more than one toilet, less mould and a bit of storage space.
But actually, it turns out living in flats is not necessarily a necessity for London families, but a choice.
As Charlotte Duck’s Homes and Property cover feature this week shows, the numbers of parents bringing up children in flats is rising.
Mortgage rates, high childcare costs and the cost-of-living crisis are playing a role in this of course, and yet this is not merely a doom and gloom story: Londoners are actively thriving in closer quarters rather than fleeing the capital.
Indeed, many are choosing to live in flats over houses, getting the very best out of smaller spaces while enjoying the proximity to the London action.
For people like me who have an aversion to the suburbs — gleaned from the experience of growing up in one, with all the stunted emotional and intellectual development it entails — staying relatively close to the centre of it all is worth the crush at home.
That is, until a house with slides hits the market. At which point, I’ll be extolling the virtues of space and high velocity living.
