Help me mumsnet! Where should I live?

[whattheheckisgoingon]

Ok. So thinking seriously about relocating from our TINY London property to somewhere with more space (before I go totally bonkers). Perhaps it's the weather but London feels absolutely stifling for our growing family!

I am feeling quite overwhelmed with the decision and don't know many areas outside the M25 very well at all.

Our new location needs to be:

• Within an hour-ish drive of Cambridge and accesible to Manchester too (3 hours is fine)

• within an hour train to London for work
• have good schools. Ours are at primary age.
• enable us to buy a 4 bed semi or semi detached with garden and a good community for around 600k

Any recomendations for towns and villages that might fit that criteria?

All suggestions will be very gratefully received (and instantly rightmoved of course)!!

Shropshire. Or Worcestershire? Both fairly central so travelling to London or Manchester is fairly straight forward.
I love in a beautiful town in Shropshire after moving from London. It's very much a community here, education is fantastic, in fact the town I live in is like a little London!

south cambs, north herts (royston/melbourn/shepreth/foxton/buntingford area), closer to cambridge than an hour but on kings X trainline and m11, A1 are close by.

You can't really get from Worcestershire to London in an hour as all our trains are longer routes.

You can get to Euston from Birmingham International in just over an hour (I always do this despite living near Worcester) and it's cheaper than the Worcester-Paddington line.

That said, Worcestershire is lovely and you'll get a lot of house for your buck.

You could try Knowle, near Solihull, v lovely. Near enough to International station to commute. Expensive but within your budget. Or Dorridge and Lapworth. If you don't mind more built up (but not London built up) Solihull itself.

That's for somewhere around Birmingham International. Otherwise what about North Cotswolds, Moreton in Marsh has train to London. I guess it depends how often you need the 3 hours to Manchester.

Around the Saffron Walden area?

Scrap that, it's 4 hours from Manc. But an hour from London, not sure you could get somewhere that close to both?

The Milton Keynes area would seem to fit with your ideals:

3 hrs from Manchester by car
1 hr from Cambridge by car
1 hr into London by train

It is close to the M1 motorway and you could get a nice 4 bed detached there for 600k.