Last week we had a day out in Budleigh Salterton with our friend Jayne and Christos Yianni, and a very jolly time we had of it. I like Budleigh a lot, but all the time I was walking around and enjoying the August sights and sounds there was a nagging memory lurking in the back of my mind. I knew I’d visited BS a long long time ago as part of my work as Senior Feature Writer of the Western Morning News - the main daily paper in the West Country - but I couldn’t remember what the story was which took me there.

Looking through my old articles I’ve found the answer - and a rather surprising article it is too. As you will see if you read further - back in 2003 dear old Budleigh Salterton had been named the crummiest, biggest rip-off place in Britain when it came over over-inflated property prices. Both then and now, I found it hard to believe that anyone would want to knock this wonderful, quaintly old-fashioned, East Devon resort.

Oh, and by-the-way, wouldn’t you love to be paying the prices quoted now… Here’s my article from 2003…

Stand-first: A West Country coastal resort has been named the worst value-for-money location in Britain in which to buy a house. Martin Hesp has been to Budleigh Salterton to investigate why.

It might be the final resting place for the wily rich, it might be highly attractive, peaceful, unspoilt and conveniently situated on the well-connected and balmy East Devon coast - but apparently Budleigh Salterton is the most over-priced place in Britain when it comes to property.

So says a leading financial research company whose findings were repeated in a national newspaper at the weekend. However, most people in town believe the claim is “tosh”.

That was the word used by a leading Budleigh Salterton estate agent when I showed him the newspaper article in question – and it was a sentiment repeated by a ratio of at least nine-out-of-ten residents I met this week.

You’d expect an estate agent to defend the large six-figure house-prices pinned to every single property in his shop window, but it’s true to say that the average Saltertonian takes the worse-value-for-money-in-Britain headline with open-mouthed disbelief. 

Typical of the comments I received were: “Best value for money, they mean,” “Market-forces – the high house prices reflect a need – people want to come here,” and “High crime rate, poor education, poor health care? Poppycock!”

The last remark referred to the index-linked process employed by researchers at the firm Experian when surveying the nation’s best and worst value-for-money locations. The company’s statisticians look at the average house price within a postal area and then link it to indices that refer to health-care, crime and schools. With an average home price of £237,000, Budleigh Salterton came rock bottom of the national league – closely followed by its neighbour Sidmouth which scraped in at third place in the bad deal stakes.

“It’s not about how pretty a place is, or the general ambience – it’s about pure value for money,” I was told by Experian’s corporate relations manager, Bruno Rost. He also explained how the survey did not reflect services alone, but services linked to house prices. “This is just an academic study that tries to show where you could go if you were a newcomer to Britain - and didn’t care where you lived - but wanted the best deal.”

The results were published in Sunday’s Observer with the sub-headlines Cheap ‘n’ Cheerful and Dear ‘n’ Dreadful – an editorial tactic which didn’t endear the paper to locals in East Devon. A village called Beeford in East Yorkshire came top of the cheap and cheerful list with homes averaging a mere £81,000 coupled with first class local services. The newspaper published a photograph of Beeford in bright sunshine. Under a headline that said “Bypass Devon and Dorset and Head For Humberside” it also carried a bleak and rain-swept picture of Brighton seafront (which came fifth from bottom).

It soon became apparent, as I stopped and talked to people in Budleigh Salterton’s delightful main street, that the Observer is not the newspaper of choice in town.  Consequently, most refused to believe anyone could have made such a claim - until I showed them the article. Then mild and polite outrage was the order of the day.

One man even sought me out to rant against the survey’s findings. Richard Gibbons has lived in town for ten years and he told me: “The place is stuffed with millionaires. Do you think they’re the sort of people who would buy something that was not value for money? Just because this is a place set back in time, people think they have to knock it. But the quality of life here is better than anywhere else I know of.

“Look at the services – an excellent school, a large health centre and small hospital, the bus services to Exeter, the lack of crime,” said Mr Gibbons. “And look at this fantastic main street, with all its interesting shops. I really don’t know what the research people are talking about – I don’t think they’ve ever been here…”

These sentiments were echoed by Richard Harman, manager of estate agent Palmers, Whitton and Laing: “Maybe Budleigh Salterton is an expensive place, but we’re very busy at the moment and surely people wouldn’t be paying these prices if they didn’t represent good value for money? People are completely reconciled to the value of property here.

“We get a lot of retired people from the Home Counties and, not only do they love the East Devon surroundings, they like the fact that we’re so well connected. There’s the rail link to London, the M5 isn’t far away – Exeter Airport is growing fast. Also, it’s one of the few seaside resorts that doesn’t get completely overrun in the summer. And there are zillions of local societies – people don’t get bored – Budleigh Salterton offers everything. This survey is tosh.”

Outside Fulfords – another estate agents – I bumped into Australian David Childe who was in town with his partner Phillipa looking to buy a property. I asked them if they realised they were about to purchase the worst deal in Britain?

“That’s rubbish,” said David. “We live in London and we’ve been all over the place looking at properties. In fact, we think this area represents the best value for money we’ve seen.”

But not everyone was willing to back Budleigh on the subject of property versus value. When I told Post Office assistant Heather Paul about the survey’s findings, she replied: “I’m not surprised. I’m absolutely disgusted by the house prices here. Only yesterday I went looking for a small flat for my daughter Nichola, who’s a nurse. The cheapest we could find was £159,000. You can’t afford that on a nurse’s wages. I was born and bred in Budleigh, but I can’t see how our children can go on living here with prices like that.”

The sentiment was shared by two women running a delicatessen a few doors down the street. Neither would give me their names, but they said: “There’s nothing for the kids here. It’s terrible – all the kids leave as soon as they can. And we can see what they mean about services – there’s no supermarket, hardly any buses. Budleigh is a place for rich old people.”

“It used to be full of retired colonels, admirals - that sort,” said 78-year old George Mitchell, who spent most of his working life as a jobbing gardener in town. “Most of them were mean. If you asked for a shilling extra, they’d go to their club and ask each other what all the other gardeners were paid. Then they’d agree to keep the rate down. Value for money? I don’t know. But a friend sold his place for £4,000 a while back – now it’s just gone for £300,000…”

It’s hard to see how such market forces can be ignored when discussing value for money. And there was another question which seemed to belie the report’s insistence that local health care was less than adequate. “If it was that bad, how come there are so many old people living here?” asked Richard Gibbons. “If there was no health care, most of them would be dead.”