I am half way through my second year of a 3.5 year funded ESPRC PhD.

For personal reasons, to be closer to family and partner I would like to move to my hometown in the South of the UK. I am at a University in the North of England.

My PhD can be completed from a remote laptop, as it is all computer simulation based. The only thing I would be missing out on is teaching opportunities, though I have done plenty in my first two years.

Has anyone ever done something similar? I am speaking with my supervisor next week and figuring how best to approach the issue.

I could quite easily have a weekly skype meeting and travel up for a day or two once a month.

I don't see why it shouldn't be a problem given the computational nature of your PhD. Also, given you're approaching the end of your PhD and the write-up stage, now would be the time to wind up and do less teaching so as to focus on finishing. My PhD supervisor actually loved to Skype, though we normally tried to meet in person once a week. In your case Skype and meeting in person once or twice a month sounds perfectly reasonable.

I did this. My PhD is in engineering which involves mostly computer simulations (MATLAB). I was based on campus at a University just North of London for the first year and then worked from home in Scotland for the next 2.5-3 years (also due to personal reasons). The arrangement was pretty informal in the sense that it didn’t have to go through the department head etc. The only thing I deeded approval for was to take my machine off-campus which the IT department signed-off without any drama (I return this once I've completed the write-up). Most discussions with my supervisor have been had over Skype/phone with occasional travel for face-to-face meetings (roughly every 6 months). Good luck.