March Property Market Update
Anthony Mayell, head of Fisher German’s Worcester office, reports that the property market, west of the M5 and River Severn, the “new Cotswolds” as it has been christened, is on the rise.
With a month to go before the marketing of a 212 acre residential farm in East Herefordshire the telephones started ringing in Fisher German’s Worcester office as the rumours began to spread. Not even the £1,000,000 guide price seemed to deter buyers for a pretty farmhouse in an unspoilt valley crying out for inspired renovation.
But that is the phenomenon that is the “new Cotswolds” – rolling Worcestershire and Herefordshire hills hiding away pretty villages and bustling towns. Here farmers market local produce and organic fruit and vegetables have been the staple diet for many years.
Michelin starred restaurateur Shaun Hill’s new Glasshouse restaurant in Worcester, the Festival Theatre in Malvern, the internationally renowned Ledbury Poetry Festival, and the annual Three Choirs Festival hosted by the cathedrals of Gloucester, Hereford and Worcester are just some of the trappings of sophisticated rural living which are increasingly tempting buyers across the M5 and the River Severn.
Not only weekenders, but a growing number of residents have relocated from London and the cities of the Midlands to work from home – rural offices in Manor and village houses, garden studios, and converted barns where live/work designs satisfy planning policy in terms of sustainability, all play their part.
Worcestershire and Herefordshire may be an hour’s drive further from London than the Cotswolds, but for many that is part of their charm. Mainline stations in Ledbury and Malvern run services to Birmingham and London, and when you feel the need to spice up the rural lifestyle with a city excursion the expanding regional airports of Birmingham, Bristol and Cardiff bring the world to your door.
In the Malvern Hills where the joys of “new Cotswolds” living have been discovered house prices are three times higher than in 2003.
Now the gap in prices west of the M5 is closing fast. Average house prices in Worcestershire are reported at £195,000, and although large country houses are as rare as hen’s teeth, the towns of Upton upon Severn and Malvern have seen an upsurge in demand.
The Herefordshire black and white town of Ledbury and the riverside town of Ross on Wye on the banks of the Wye could prove honey pots for buyers in 2007. The grandly named M50 connects both towns to the M5 in the Midlands, and via the A40 to Cardiff and the M4. Even if London is 2½ hours drive that is no deterrent to home working families with private schooling in abundance in Worcester, Hereford, Malvern, Cheltenham and Gloucester.
The irony of the region is the relative closeness of Cheltenham, the Regency capital of the “old” Cotswolds, and Gloucester, the much maligned neighbour, is also rising again on the back of an urban regeneration scheme.
Anthony Mayell, head of Fisher German’s Worcester office, predicts that “if it works this regeneration will cause an upstream tidal effect on the River Severn which will raise the profile not only of the Severn Vale but also the charming and unpretentious counties of Worcestershire and Herefordshire – as if the market needed any more help.”
- Ashby de la Zouch
- 01530 412821
- Banbury
- 01295 271 555
- Knutsford
- 01565 757970
- Market Harborough
- 01858 410 200
- Newark
- 01949 851815
- Southampton
- 02380 883150
- Stafford
- 01785 220 044
- Worcester
- 01905 453275
