What’s it like to live in Kent?

I live in a beautiful Kent village, 35 minutes by train to London, I can walk to the station and I can walk around the countryside and not see anyone. Few village pubs, good schools and bluewater not too far if you need something

I don’t enjoy living in Kent that much but am forced to due to my DH’s job as he works in London. We live in a smallish town in East Kent after moving ‘down from London’ - well Bromley, 7 years ago. It’s home to a very grumpy and famous 80’s icon!

A massive house building ‘ ticky tacky’ boxy estates programme is now happening all over the county which is ruining what’s left of the pretty countryside. I mean really ruining it and there is no infrastructure for it. Boris has decided Kent is to expand and that’s that . It’s very upsetting and people are trying to resist but without much success.

Kent is literally packed; far too busy, no peace and so hard to find anywhere quiet. Completely congested roads, a billion motorways with a billion lorries and concreted over ugly towns.

Nice areas; Tonbridge Wells and surrounding villages, The Weald, south and north downs, coastal towns of Whitstable, Broadstairs, Sandwich and Deal. Thanet and Sheppey are nicer than portrayed.

I too find people unfriendly and Kent lacks any real sense of identity compared to say Essex or Yorkshire. Strange, considering the high population. It’s still not multicultural at all and insular in so many places.

Medway has an interesting history but is urban sprawl, it’s a huge city really and has an ever growing crime rate. Rochester is the nicest area in Medway. It has some good grammar schools.

I live and work fairly near Canterbury which is a lovely city but very student orientated. Not much family housing. But again, surrounding villages and countryside are lovely.

I find the public services such as the NHS simply shambolic in East Kent, it really is appalling ( see the news). Public transport very expensive and highly variable, with the HS1 being by far the best train service to London. Don’t bother to go to London any weekend though by train as you’ll be on a 3 hr bus replacement service due to endless engineering works!

No real good nightlife for those who want it. Many areas of Kent close at 4pm - the war is definitely still on where I live! Great local organically produced foods though with fabulous pubs and trendy farmer’s markets. The fruit and veg are superb, although pricey.

If you have the money, aim for the villages. Avoid Sittingbourne, Ashford, Dover. History of Kent is fab though; the Romans and Tudors abound, with castles and cathedrals everywhere. It is good for kids and quite family friendly with wildlife parks, go ape, biking and the beaches.

Be extremely careful with the education grammar system. Many comps are dreadful, some not too bad. Grammar is highly competitive and even if you pass the Kent Test, if the bar is high that year in terms of the pass rate, you’ll be stuck with a comp.

There are a lot of good things about Kent and a lot of bad; it’s such a mixed bag. Just make sure you’ve done your research on all areas. We will leave once the kids have finished their education, it’s simply too crowded and expensive- it’s only going to get worse unfortunately. Kent is great if you have the money!

Lots of social divisions in Kent too due to disparity of wealth. Some places are so snobby and full of rich retirees, while others are poor, drug filled with crumbling estates and crime. Various areas in East Kent especially have a high traveller population. Sadly, they are often discriminated against I feel overall. A bit like the casual racism which is still prevalent in this county. It’s not at all pleasant to see and I hope things improve over time.

Best of luck!

[quote thecatsabsentcojones]@Icequeen01 I come from the town with the big steam trains! Probably like you (and if that’s the case we probably know eachother at least by sight!), such is this place.

Really lucky to live here, love it.[/quote]
Yes me too 🤣 I wonder if we do know each other by sight or may be we are even neighbour's!

We lived near Maidstone some time ago. Positives. Close enough to London for theatre trips, good countryside close by, lots of historic sites to visit, good schools, close to the Channel Ports for day trips to France, plenty of good restaurants and pubs. Negatives. Too many people. Every day out involved sitting in traffic jams, we were not over impressed with the local coast, but ok for days out. Our family live in Lincs and Lancs, so it was a long slog to visit and at Bank Holidays the roads were horrendously busy. We made some good friends, and good profit on the house, so after 3 years we sold up and were able to buy a house and business in the NW with the equity. Been here ever since.

My grandparents also discovered East Sussex can be a crap place to be old and frail. They spent their dotages with Tunbridge Wells and Hastings fighting not to take on their care. My poor mum...

I live in a rural village 10 mins from the coast in east Kent. It's lovely and peaceful, great walks etc - but also I'm probably 10 mins drive from a great selection of local shops, and a station that takes me to london in 1.5 hours. We love it!

I can't really put into words the difference between Kent and East Sussex but as a huge generalisation, East Sussex is less modern, with all the pros and cons that implies. In my London-y bit of Kent; it's not always so pretty but services are good and you can be in Central London in half an hour. That's more important to me than views of oast houses. Love an oast house though.

I thought the Greek comment/question was interesting, having just read one of Victoria Hislop's novels set there. As a country that has experienced ethnic cleansing, large scale population exchange, invasion, the Holocaust, dictatorship, a civil war and now a refugee crisis, I imagine they might perhaps be glad to have our rather minor issues....

I moved to Folkestone from London, still cheap property prices for houses, decent schools, gorgeous seaside, small nice friendly(ish) town, the north downs, easy to get to canterbury and london is a 50 min train on the high speed (which is hugely expensive but the property prices should offset that sort of thing). Great food places, and tonnes of art. Lovely old high street with small businesses, thriving music scene and the revived Harbour Arm.
Downside, it is quite small and it takes time to become a "local" and not a DFL (down from london), there are quite a lot of rabid "hate immigrants" and brexit supporters although this is changing as the demographic is now becoming more diverse due to people moving from London. Part of the town is totally shit, full of empty shops although I hear there are plans to transform it. There are plans for lots of development and it is an up and coming area which means prices going up. There is still a lot of poverty due to not much work and the train prices pricing people out of going into London. The summer is really busy and moreso now that people are holidaying in the UK, however, I really love the winters - they are quite mild and lots of the locals enjoy the beaches and sea all year round.

I love the place, but I am lucky that I get to commute a few times into London to have that balance.
I have found Folkestone to be peaceful and there stretches of beach on the way to Hythe were you often can get space to yourself.

Best thing I did really, my quality of life has improved massively, along with breathing in that sea air!

Especially moving from London. Also many of us are from diverse backgrounds and would perhaps not want to move to an area that is mostly indigenous to that area and perhaps be considered even more of an "outsider" as many small towns have the tendency to do.

Having a good mix of cultures in my mind is a plus and makes for a more interesting area.

I'm from Kent, village between Canterbury and Folkestone. Former farmers. The Kent of today bears no semblance to my childhood. Still nice pockets though but it's all very estuarian nowadays.

If I were the OP I'd look at Cambs I think.

As most of London have moved to the Kent coast over the last year prices have rocketed. There is also resentment from locals about DFL's as they are called here (Down From London). I'd say the south east of the country is one of the most built up areas. The M2 is totally clogged with beach traffic on a sunny day. I live there and do not find it rural, I'd love to move somewhere quiet.

The other thing for the OP to consider given that reducing their outlay is one consideration, is the cost of commuting. I live somewhere that pretty much fits the criteria but £450k would be a real stretch and a ticket to London is just shy of £50 return without tube.

A season ticket works out much cheaper but not if you only commute twice a week, then it actually works out more expensive. I think new flexi season tickets for 8 days per month bring it down to about £42 a day, but if you need to add car parking and tube, that mounts up again. Parking is £5.80 a day.

I'm in a village near Folkestone, Ashford and Canterbury. Came here from SE London 3 years ago and love it. Village is quiet but has a school, pub, shop and cafe so everything we wanted. Folkestone is brilliant. The Coastal Park and Harbour Arm are great.

Rarely have a traffic problem.

[quote OhSmellyCatSmellyCat]@MaryBoBary that's a bit jaded isn't it. I'm in kent and you can't walk up the high street without people stopping to chat[/quote]
Totally agree , I chat with lots of people I don’t know when I walk my dog / go to the shops etc .

The op won't get far in Surrey with a budget of £450.

Have you considered Surrey? It hasn't got the coast but only an hour or so away. it's obviously very built up in places but there are plenty of places where I live wher I can walk and not see another person for miles (around the downs, North Downs Way etc) and it's only half an hour into London. The new building thing is an issue, of course, but lots of it is still protected by green belt and a lot has already been "done".

@MaryBoBary that's a bit jaded isn't it. I'm in kent and you can't walk up the high street without people stopping to chat

[quote MaryBoBary]@Floralnomad a friend of mine works for Kent police and a high proportion of 999 calls are from Medway/Rochester area. I wouldn't want to live there.[/quote]
I live there, and you get the good the bad and the ugly……
Just like anywhere else!

Oh the other thing is that coastal towns are fickle. In general they are usually some of the most deprived areas in the country, the influx in "down from london" people, holiday homes etc means that nicer seaside towns are very expensive and sometimes not set up for regular life for full time living (eg poor schools, lack of "big" supermarkets, poor healthcare services)

I live in a seaside town thats a destination and is often quoted on these threads, house prices are massively up, and there's lots of transport issues eg. When I was house hunting there are whole stretches of A roads, and surrounding towns that are completely un accessible in the summer if you are commuting

My area is also one of the most deprived (sometimes quoted as the most deprived) in the country. Its schools aren't good, and lots of the infrastructure is struggling but people judge it by the one nice street and assume that's what its like to live there

The other thing about east sussex is that the car links are poor in places some towns like hastings for example are absolutely miles away from any motorways so any travel takes significantly longer than equivilant journeys in Kent which has good motorway links

The problem is that what you want is what everybody wants. Theres a massive market for people that want rural houses within reach of London commutes, without London prices, well connected to amenities. What that does is encourage house prices in that area up, and encourage lots more development in that area so you lose that rural feel.

Everybody wants some sort of secret place to exist that only they know about. But in general if you have mainstream needs then where you want to live is where lots of other people want to live

Kent is a real mixed bag, lots of the rural areas have high prices, the towns not so much. Its the same mix as most counties in Yorkshire you could move to the dales or you could move to Halifax and life would be different in each

East Sussex i would say is more rural but tends to have worse transport links, with trains taking often more in the region of 2 hours if your looking outside of bigger towns like Crawley, or cities like Brighton.

@Icequeen01 I come from the town with the big steam trains! Probably like you (and if that’s the case we probably know eachother at least by sight!), such is this place.

Really lucky to live here, love it.

@MaryBoBary I’m not sure I agree. I think it completely depends on where you move to and how much effort you put in, I live in a small market town that’s loved by many - there’s a good sense of community here and people do tend to assimilate fast. It helps having kids that are school age but there’s plenty of opportunity through clubs etc, my running club is a lovely group for example.

Part of my job has been talking to lots of people within Kent, and there’s certainly a variety of responses throughout each place. Birchington for example was really friendly and had an amazing sense of community. It didn’t look like it would! Other places I’d say were a bit less friendly.

It’s got to be lots of Airbnb’s for the OP with a good explore. It’ll be fun.