Do it, do it, Nikon is better haha
(that and you're local so there'll be at least two Nikon users registered here and living in the area

)
I'm actually in Canterbury now at uni, but do pop back to Herts regularly enough
Basically while i was on holiday my 7D (which i bough brand new in March started playing up) and my 100-400mm image stabilizing went crazy.
The lens problem was re-occuring and only in January had Canon fixed it, so 8 months later it happened again (i had not dropped or damaged the lens in any way to cause this, which canon tried to make out).
Turns out the 7D needed a new shutter. Pretty bad for a £1000+ camera bought in march.
Both lens and camera got taken into canon where they outsourced them to h lehman who have been great. But i don't know why the lens got sent there. Lehman sent 7d back today (should be here tomorrow) but told me canon wanted the lens back (i was confused), phoned canon they didn't know why. Phoned again today saying i will come pick up lens as i need it for saturday. But they then proceed to tell me it is coming back to canon to get fixed as currently not fixed!!! So why send it off somewhere for 3 weeks not for it to get fixed.
All a bit of a joke, i've done all the running, phoning canon etc. Recieved no emails from them apart from the one telling me they'd sent it to lehmann.
Fed up. The joke is the first time i rung canon after they'd had them for about 3 weeks the woman was all like sorry then goes 'but sir we do tell our customers to not expect a repair for 7-10 working days.' to which i replied well why have you had mine for 3 weeks?
I am gonna cost the swap and see what nikon can offer