London leavers: 'We must be the only people to move out of London and get a smaller garden'

Moving from south-east London down to the Kent coast is a well-trodden path. “It's a bit of a cliche, isn't it?” laughs small business owner Marie Pontefract, who relocated from Hither Green to Broadstairs in 2019.

It was spending every other weekend around Thanet with husband Nick, chief strategy officer for Sport England, and their son Albie, now nine, which planted the seed for a new life by the sea. Marie, who was working as a designer for a high street fashion chain at the time, recalls seeing Ablie “completely transform on the beach, having the space to be a crazy little toddler.”