A pair who swapped their noisy London rental for countryside homeownership claim life beyond the capital offers superior quality. Tori Halman, 31, and partner Rob Overall, 30, relocated to Cheshire last year following nearly ten years in London and express no regrets about their decision. The duo are particularly delighted to have escaped the din, criminality, vermin, and congestion after choosing rural tranquillity.
Originally from Cheshire, Tori relocated to London in 2015 to pursue postgraduate studies at City University. Following graduation, she remained in the capital sharing accommodation with friends to advance her public relations career. She explained: “I lived in a student flat share with three girls which was an absolute hovel. It was a tiny flat and my bedroom was also the living room. We were broken into once and had literally everything stolen. There were lots of mice. It was chaos.”
Tori subsequently met partner Rob, and they leased a boisterous Clapham flat together for approximately £1,500 per calendar month. The couple then embarked on a nine-month South American backpacking adventure, during which they began questioning whether returning to London made sense.
Tori continued: “We weren’t really making the most of London and all its amazing bars. It seemed pointless for us to spend all this money just to drive out to go on a hike every weekend. We sat in traffic leaving London pretty much every morning for a year. It just wasn’t conducive to our lifestyle at all. We hadn’t decided on Cheshire at that point, we just knew that we didn’t want to be in London. We had looked around what we could get in the commutable areas around the city but it wasn’t very inspiring.
“We needed somewhere that would be a relatively quick and cheap commute, but where our house, mortgage, coffee, gym, everything would be more affordable.” Last summer, they made the bold move and purchased a four-bedroom, £650,000 property in the village of Winterley, near Sandbach, in August.
Tori operates from home full time whilst her partner Rob, who works as a data engineer, makes the journey to London once weekly. The trip from their fresh abode to Euston requires approximately two hours in total via the local railway station in Crewe. Since relocating to the countryside, the pair have become members of numerous societies and report they’ve started forming friendships up north. On the whole, Tori reveals that they are both delighted with their choice and feel more secure, whilst also enjoying an improved work-life balance.
She explained: “We lived in a very busy area, and it was very noisy. There were lots of graduates out partying until the early hours and I found it very hard to switch off. I left work and I was still in the hustle and bustle of everything. Since moving, when I close my laptop I feel very detached from my working life.”
Tori candidly shared her newfound sense of security since moving out of London, saying: “We often forget to lock the door, we are always coming back from a dog walk and we have left the back door wide open.” She expressed her comfort in her new environment: “There is definitely a more relaxed attitude. In London I didn’t always like walking home. If I stay here alone overnight then I feel totally safe, which is really nice.”
Reflecting on her past life, Tori admitted missing the diverse food options in London but relished the trade-off for more space, which even allowed for a new addition to the family, a Labrador puppy named Inca. She highlighted the drawbacks of city living: “The main issues with London are price and space.”
Tori noted a trend among her peers: “Most of our friends are leaving London because they are being priced out.” She discussed the compromises that would have been necessary to buy in London: “We would have been able to buy in London, but we would have had to sacrifice a lot of things.”
The benefits of her move were clear: “Being able to have a garden and a dog and to grow some vegetables was just not really within our reach in London.” Now involved with Women in PR, Tori is part of an initiative to demonstrate that successful careers can flourish outside the capital.
The campaign also shines a light on the thriving media industries in northern cities like Manchester. Tori voiced a common concern but remained optimistic: “There is always the fear that we have massively narrowed our career pool. We got lucky that in our current jobs we can work remotely.” She concluded with a message of encouragement: “People need to know that they can have a great quality of life outside of London.”