When Leah Brown started telling her friends she was thinking about moving to Broadstairs, a town she’s only just discovered and where she knew not a soul, their response was a resounding chorus of: “What? Why?”
But Brown was certain that what she needed most in life at that point was change.
“Basically I ignored the advice,” she says. “I believe that you have a choice in life. You can either stay where you are because it is easier, or you can have an adventure. I chose adventure.”
In 2018, several years before she had even heard of Broadstairs, Brown had bought her first home, a two-bedroom flat in Oval.
A lawyer by trade, she also had a demanding job as general counsel and company secretary for a fintech company, and regularly put in 90 hours per week in the office.
But, having been raised in rural Yorkshire, despite her success she was never fully comfortable with city life.
“I realised that I was never going to be the best version of myself in London,” she says. “I really love being outside. I need open space just to think and clear my mind.”
Brown wanted to stay within striking distance of London and so she began to explore her options on the Kent coast.
She decided to go and recce Margate, ended up staying in Ramsgate and, while out for a walk, happened upon Broadstairs. It was love at first sight.
“I thought: “This is where I need to move to, it is incredible”,” she says. “It is very quaint, very Charles Dickens-esque, like you are in a story. And the beauty of Botany Bay is just outstanding.”
Leah took her time getting to know Broadstairs, taking regular day trips accompanied by her dog, Saphy, a cavapoo.
Meanwhile, her career was evolving. She helped negotiate the sale of the start up in 2021, took another start up job for nine months, and then, in 2022, founded The Wayfinders Group, a business consultancy which specialises in helping firms navigate positive change. She has also branched out as a speaker, podcaster, and writer, specialising in leadership in the workplace and memoir.
Her initial plan was to sell her London flat and buy a place in Broadstairs but fate stepped in and a whole series of deals fell through — in one case the vendors changed their mind about selling, in another the owners became impatient about the time her flat in Oval was taking to sell and pulled out.
Thoroughly fed up Leah decided to rent instead — “I thought: ‘I give up, I have tried hard enough’ — and finally moved to a rented £800pcm fisherman’s cottage in the heart of Broadstairs in March 2022.
“It is simple, but it is very comfortable,” she says. “I have great neighbours, I am in the centre of town, and it is very convivial.”
She finally sold her two-bedroom flat in October 2023 for £525,000 but is in no rush to get back onto the property ladder, preferring to invest into the business in its early years instead.
One of the reasons that Brown’s friends had been so dubious about her Broadstairs plan is that Kent is hardly a county known for its diversity.
But Brown has had no trouble making new friends, while networking at the local Chamber of Commerce, writing for a local paper, and setting up a local mediation centre.
“I don’t need to be surrounded by people who look like me,” she says, also noting that since the pandemic an inflow of ex-Londoners has also started to make Broadstairs feel less, well, white. “I have been welcomed with open arms.”
She has also discovered that solo, whilst a terrifying thought for most of us, has some real, practical advantages.
“I don’t owe anybody anything, I don’t have to live up to any expectations,” says Brown. “My only regret would be not doing it sooner.”
