Town has become 'Notting Hill-on-Sea'

10:58am Wednesday 11th April 2007

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BRIDPORT is waging war against city slickers since being branded a town of 'rural workers and fishermen'.

The town was labelled 'Notting Hill-on-Sea' by The Observer, which said house prices are climbing as more and more Londoners are 'lured by the open space and urban chic'.

The Daily Telegraph has called Bridport a 'metropolitan bolt-hole where estate agents could not keep up with demand'.

And now, a local holiday home business is encouraging visitors to 'join London's trendsetters and discover Bridport'.

But not all locals are welcoming the attention, saying Bridport has been misrepresented by the national press and by celebrity chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.

Many claim wealthy Londoners are outpricing locals in the housing market.

A community website responds to the articles fiercely under the heading 'Bloody Townies'.

Contributors call for a public lynching of the journalist who compared the town with Notting Hill, and comments include: 'Is she writing about the town I've lived in for 35 years? If she is, I don't recognise it.'

And: 'The increase in house prices is actually a serious problem for the young people that live here.'

Estate agent Martin Bowen-Ashwin of Humberts says Bridport is now a town of delicatessens, coffee shops and wine bars.

He told the Telegraph: "West Dorset has seen one of the biggest price rises in the country in the past decade.

"A lot of second-home owners have moved here - 50 per cent of my sales in the past year have been to Londoners."

But Bridport Town Councillor Karl Wallace feels the 'Notting Hill' label could misrepresent Bridport.

Coun Wallace, a nurse at Bridport Hospital, who originally moved from Surrey, said: "We can't stop people wanting to move to such a lovely location.

"But we are not just about big posh houses, we are a working community and need to be portrayed as such.

"Bridport has been misrepresented before by television programmes like Harbour Lights.

"This area is made up of a mish-mash of people - always has been, always will be - and we need that mixture."

Comments from Bridportians on the community website include:

'It's as if we're all rolling around on the back of horse-drawn carts chewing on straw and holding a pewter tankard.'

'If Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts try filming any romantic comedies down here they wouldn't last more than a week before their noses are literally put out of joint by a disgruntled local.'

'Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall portrays this area as a bunch of wurzels who will fix the cylinder head gasket on his Land Rover for a ham sandwich.'

'The town doesn't give a frothy coffee about celebrity.'

'I'm fed up with those who deign to grace us with their presence and then wonder where the nearest Waitrose is.'

'The nation must know that Bridport is hostile to its new image.'