London property being back in vogue will hopefully halt the march on Yorkshire’s countryside - Sarah Todd

If us yokels had a pound for every time we have got chatting to somebody - like northerners do - and they have smugly said how they have bought a coastal cottage, market town detached, former farmhouse or city living loft space for what seemed like peanuts in comparison to their old life down south we might even be able to afford to eat out again.

You know, like we used to do before pubs and restaurants got overtaken by a new breed of diner, who don’t bat an eyelid at a glass of wine that costs more than a good supermarket bottle or a steak for over £30.

Now, thank goodness, in what can only be described as a complete U-turn more than half of the people living in the capital - 58 per cent to be exact – have declared they are happy to stay in the Big Smoke rather than relocating. In the blink of an eye this has changed from half of the metropolis reporting itchy feet; a fancy for flitting from the city.

These Rightmove revelations come five years after Covid, the awful era that lit the touchpaper for so many people to ponder turning their backs on city life and start heading for our fine county’s hills.

Employers starting to grow backbones and increasingly asking workers to return to the office must be playing their part in this relocation reversal.

Other stark realities, like poor public transport and a lack of amenities may also be hitting home. After all, the more metropolitan existence typically has so much more within walking distance, from public parks to cultural life and cool cafes.

The pandemic has so much to answer for and, in this curmudgeonly correspondent’s mind, a pivotal point came almost exactly five years ago when then Prime Minister Boris Johnson unveiled his ‘first sketch of a roadmap for reopening society.’

He gave the green light for citizens to ‘take unlimited exercise outside.’ In addition to being able to leave home as many times as they wished for stretching their legs or sunbathing in parks, the messy mopped one also encouraged people to drive out to discover other destinations, to get some fresh air as often as they fancied. And so, the floodgates to the countryside were opened and it wasn’t long before gateways were being parked and picnicked in, along with fields trampled as this new breed of lockdown visitor attempted avoiding mud.

Can readers remember when things got so bad the Country Land and Business Association (CLA) warned this influx of newly released people walking over planted crops was affecting farmers' businesses? Tenfold increases in walker numbers were witnessed, with tales of five-foot-wide paths being paddled to 36ft - that’s eleven metres - by those not wanting to get their shoes dirty.

London being back in vogue will hopefully halt this march on the countryside. It’s been an invasion nobody ever seems to speak about, let alone tackle.

Well, nobody apart from Lake District farmer and author James Rebanks, who absolutely hits the nail on the head when he describes the feeling, almost akin to an Indigenous population such as the native Americans, of being deeply connected to the land and its history. Of looking around ‘five generations thick’ yet feeling like an outsider in such an increasingly gentrified and alien landscape.

Advertisements describe old farmhouses - we all know the ones that once upon a time would have housed characters like television series Heartbeat’s lovable rogue Claude Jeremiah Greengrass - as being dream destinations for the discerning ‘lifestyle’ buyer. First things first, the decorators inevitably end up being instructed to use the same muted good-taste sage as on nearly all the other doors from Whitby to Whitstable. The same plants in the garden, the same car on the drive.

Of course, some incomers inject new life into communities but for every one of them, there must be thousands of often affluent people used to getting their own way who come up with complaints about anything and everything from sheep baa-ing too early in the morning, to dust from combine harvesters through to noisy tractors, cockerels crowing and cows mooing.

Many more examples can be found on the internet-based forum Mumsnet, from banging bird scarers to slurry spreading, hedge cutting and - believe it or not - an appeal for horses to wear nappies to prevent them making muck on the road. Those of us of a certain age can remember little old men dashing out with a fork to grab any horse muck for their roses, with plenty of good-natured chat and laughs.

Such stupid squealing doesn’t just take place in the countryside. Smelly seaweed and noisy seagulls are often grumbled about by newcomers to coastal living, along with the likes of noise from pub beer gardens or school playgrounds in towns and cities. None of us, especially in the newspaper world, are blameless. Take The Sunday Times and its annual Best Places to Live list. Remember, as country folk well know, the grass isn’t always greener on the other side of the fence…

Sarah Todd is a journalist specialising in farming and country life. Read her weekly column in Wednesday’s edition of The Yorkshire Post.