AIBU to consider moving to Wales for family and lower costs

Added bonus about fees if any of your DC go to university too.

I don’t think the kids wishes should really sway this that much. You need to think of their futures because they won’t know what they’re moving to. Moving to a rural area with only a low pay low skill economy is really really going to scupper their independence just as they approach adulthood. Move to a cheaper city in Wales if it needs to be Wales, or better yet keep your client base and move to a cheaper part of the SE.
when you’re actually retired then you can live in Wales although it will make you harder for your kids to visit.

There is a reason why rent is so low in Brynmawr. As others have mentioned its massively deprived with little opportunity for your DC.

I also echo other experiences with the NHS. My DF had fantastic care with his cancer. When he was accessing emergency treatment it was bordering inhumane. As for seeing a GP, you can call mine but even after calling them at 8am you're lucky if you're less than 20th in the queue. Any investigative treatment is best paid for privately due to appalling wait times. This is my experience with services local to Brynmawr.

Yes, move to Wales, including the valleys but pick somewhere with better transport links for your DC so they can access opportunities that they most certainly won't find in Brynmawr.

Would you be better off in a city, eg Swansea for the uni and hustle bustle as your kids get older ?

You will always get differing views depending on personal experience. I live in s. Wales.
It wont mean much to many but the GP contract is in much more disarray in england which will have impact on pt care going forward. You can def get an appt by phone in my working and personal GP surgery.
Sadly i have also had significant contact with NHS as a patient this yr...GP, surgeons, DNs and oncologists so far...have had nothing but amazing and timely care with access to all the same treatments as England.
Sadly there are lots of issues / probs with the NHS at present but this is Uk wide.
As for education...agree depends on what you want to measure... our high school has focuses on wellbeing / non traditional vocational GCSE subjects (which may be a better option with cost of uni / emergence of AI) and none of the nonsense of grammar schools and feeling a failure at 11.

Honestly, all NHS health care I have received has been excellent here in Wales. Same for my family.

As you already have family/connections in the area - not to mention your DC are keen to move there - I imagine you'll settle into life in Wales perfectly well @southerngirl10.

Unfortunately it didn't work out for us, despite spending much time visiting Wales before selling up in England to move there in 2018. Originally from the south coast of England, we bought our house in rural Carmarthenshire (from Londoners who'd moved back which should perhaps have been a warning) when we were in our late 40s. Try as hard as we could to integrate into the local community, we never felt welcome (our nearest neighbour, a truly awful individual, went out of his way to make our lives a misery and dissuade us from staying), so once we'd renovated our home we put it up for sale in 2024.

We're now back home in West Sussex and couldn't be happier with our decision to leave Wales. Many of the (English) people we met, often through DH's work - also a self-employed gardener back then, earning a maximum of £13 per hour! - have also since sold up to move back, including one who had relocated to Wales with a whole smallholding's worth of animals. DH currently employs someone who managed to stick it out in Pembrokeshire for just over a year, working as an over-qualified handyman, earning just £70 per day during 2024-25.

However, I can't fault their NHS. Wales is undoubtedly a very beautiful country but sadly we have never experienced such unhappiness as we did there. DH who was eventually diagnosed with severe depression, always managed to see his GP the same day and when he required hospital care in connection with this, it was of the highest level.

Yes. And we have a population that is skewed towards the older end of the lifespan and poorer health (often going back to our mining history) so there is higher demand on health and social care too.

If property prices are that low, it means that jobs are scarce and badly paid locally. We saw a habitable cottage with three bedrooms and a sea view for sale this weekend on the Aberdeenshire coast for £110k. Yes, it needed upgrading, but from the POV of a person in Cornwall, where the same house would cost x3 times that, you can only afford to buy if you are already financially secure with the money to do the work needed already in the bank.

I’ve had excellent care. So has my mum. So has my son, bat a couple of exceptions. Long waits in A&E though. I work for the NHS and my service gets very high satisfaction ratings. It’s a very large organisation with a mixture of average, fantastic and substandard services.

I had a lump on my breast and I was seen and given the all clear within two weeks.

“The Welsh”, just like everyone else, are mix of different characters and have good days and bad. We don’t like being reduced to simplistic stereotypes, even positive ones.

Completely agree with the NHS here. You wait on average 13+ hours in A&E, with people in extreme pain and some passing out.

I recently had to go private for an operation because a scan showed if I didn’t have something removed it was literally going to kill me in a matter of days. The NHS told me regardless of this, the waiting list for the operation was 3 years…

I’m from the wider area. Brynmawr is on the edge almost of the Brecon Beacons and can be very bleak in Winter. As others have said education and health are far below the standards of England.
The countryside though is beautiful as is the nearby coast.
It sounds like a good opportunity for you and DH.

Huge shortages of GPs, dentists, specialists. Health boards aren’t replacing people that leave to save costs leaving hundreds of graduate nurses and midwives without jobs. Health visitors in one health board have been on strike for 19 weeks.

A high (and expensive) private medical insurance policy.

Not great. If I’d had a crystal ball I’d have gone back to England, which has its problems too, but the death rates are higher here. Every appointment is a battle, a new set of mistakes for me to add to my list of ‘things I have to monitor myself’. And most of it isn’t about nurses being too busy (I was one myself once upon a time), but about them treating patients like things on a conveyor belt.

Sorry to be a misery, OP, but the NHS here is downright dangerous.

Pardon me, I’m not exactly clear headed as I’m recovering from being hospitalised for sepsis after my local cancer centre gave me chemo while I had clear signs of infection.

I should say every health board is under some form of government escalation. Mine infamously turns down help from England on principle, while endangering the lives of vulnerable people like me.

It’s a dangerous mess, and quibbling over wording doesn’t change that.

What does your post mean?

I live in Wales (around 20 mins from Newport). I love living here! Abergavenny is lovely, as others have said Blaenau Gwent is a deprived area although will be cheaper housing costs.

Tbh I’m totally missing the point but why are you only teaching one yoga class a week, it costs a lot to train as a yoga instructor! You should/could teach way more no? Otherwise I don’t see the point in that training.

Gold plated PMI.

How are those of you in Wales coping with such a poor health service. I’m so sorry to hear it. My family were in wales for generations, it never used to be that way. As we age, we need access to healthcare as part of our peace of mind.

We moved to south Wales from Berkshire. I was a bit worried about the allegedly unending rain, but actually when I compared the weather data I found it wasn't accurate to say it "always rained".

Where we are now we have the same number of hours of sunshine, the same number of days with and without rain, and the temperatures are very similar (fractionally milder). The only significant difference is in the amount of rain that falls. I'd say it rains about as often in Wales as in SE England; it just rains harder.