Recession Road: The Barbican

This post is from our Recession Road series, part of our special report on the global downturn.

So, finally, we're off. It seems fitting that we should start our recession-related trip in the heart of the City of London.

Just by the start of the A1 is the Barbican estate and complex, built in an area devastated by WWII bombs. It's a real City landmark and home to about 4,000 people.

We wanted to make a flying start, so we went to see one of its residents the other day. Dr Chris Mounsey - an English lecturer at the University of Winchester - is by his own description, quite an eccentric chap. With his tattooed limbs, shaved head, Ray-Bans and extremely minimalist studio flat, he's hardly the archetypal musty bookworm one might have expected.

Like many Barbicanites, he's passionate about the place: "It's an aesthetic place to live and it suits my aesthetic rather nicely."

There's a perception that the Barbican is recession-proof, at least for those who have money to invest, he says. That's why some of the higher-end apartments and penthouses still shift for well over £1m.

"We're sort of recession-proof, but I think we are being hit - all of our property prices have gone down, those people who got huge mortgages are now thinking 'Oh god, are we going to be able to carry on affording them or are we going to have to move out?'"

But many recession stories - and I'm sure we'll find this as we head north - are a case of swings and roundabouts. While the value of Chris's flat has gone down by £30,000, so has the mortgage rate.

"So it's middle-class heaven in that sense," he says.

And he doesn't want to move, so does it matter? "Everything is here, so why move? I expect to be here until I die. I can't bear the countryside either - eugh, sheep bleating and dirt."

What he does worry about though, is his students and what lies ahead for them.

"I'm teaching kids from a wide range of backgrounds who have been told 'You come and pay £9,000 in fees, you leave with a £30,000 of debt and you'll get a job'. What job?

"I have two nephews who graduated this year - neither of them has a job and as far as I can see neither of them has a prospect of getting a career-type job.

"I chose to have a gap before I did anything, but they have this gap enforced upon them. I think they are under much more pressure - much more fear."

Talking of fear, there's a reason Chris has minimal furniture and sticks to wearing his sunglasses most of the time. In recent months, he became partially sighted and is still awaiting a diagnosis.

He appears to be remarkably philosophical about it, but admits to a nagging doubt that if the expected boom in education doesn't arrive, he may be one of the first to be picked off for redundancy or early retirement.

"Sort of like the deer cull in Richmond Park. The weakest go to the wall.

"I'm not as secure because of the condition which is developing as I was before it developed.

"It's that sort of thing that makes you think this is not a time to be caught out in the cold."

You can read an explanation of our Recession Road series here. Words: Paula Dear; Images: Phil Coomes.

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