Would you buy a house where the most direct route to school is a footpath that crosses fields?

[Ginazon]

The choice would be between half a mile across the fields, or almost 2 miles walking on normal residential roads.

Would you let your 11/12/13/14/15 year old walk on the footpath? If you wouldn't let them, would you trust them not to?

The footpath is lined with trees/shrubs so not like it's a clear open space with sight lines all around.

Mine do footpath (to bus) in rhs summer, but not in the winter as way too muddy (shoes and hems would be filthy). Sometimes there are dog walkers, has never felt unsafe. We have emails about men handgun around near the girls school, but always at the “town” end of the journey.

Hanging! Not handgun! That would be alarming!

Absolutely no problem. DM would have the vapours though. I live in London. DD 11 walks to school and back. Her best friend isn't allowed. We took her ice skating on Sunday, DD says her friend isn't allowed to walk home by herself, I said "You're 11! Why not?" DM said she wouldn't like it, it's on the main drag all the way. DD may have to get a bus next year. Presumably friend's dad will drive her.

When we were house hunting I rejected a village that’s actually closer to school, but requires a similar walk. I think what would really happen is they would make friends to walk with anywhere and all would be fine, but it did feel unsafe.

Is it a proper path? My concern would be mud- we have a route to the station that can only really be walked in wellies for a significant chunk of the year, so I ended up doing far more lifts than I intended, because walking in ordinary clothes was impossible. Also it was pretty spooky in the evening, and ds in particular hated walking in the dark.

My DC does this so I don’t see a problem tbh. It’s probably because you’re not used to it. Do other kids use it? All my DCs friends go the road way but he prefers the fields

No. Perhaps I'm over cautious but no- unless the path was regularly frequented by other families on the school run. What if your DC wanted to do an after school thing and were coming home alone in the dark?

You might find other kids do the walk and you can get yours to be together- feels safer than traffic. Could they do it on bikes?

Get a dog? It could accompany kids to school and then they could tell it to go home?

It will be fine! I used to do a route like this to school, I wore wellies if it was muddy.

I'd be worried. If someone was watching her, they would know that she walked along the path every day, and what time.

It’s an official footpath, mapped on Google maps, but it’s not maintained particularly. I have only used it when out running with a group, and was aware of having to watch my footing and not really running as such.

The path connects from the school to a small estate with less than a hundred houses, no idea how many children/dog walkers that would mean are using it.

I can see that the distance would mean that actually they would be unlikely to be doing it in the dark for regular school hours, unless they have other activities after school.

Get a dog? It could accompany kids to school and then they could tell it to go home?

Do dogs do that? Would it go back at 3.30 to pick them up too?

Thanks for your thoughts everyone. Maybe I’ll go walk it later and see how I feel.

Huh, just had a call to say our viewing is cancelled because they’ve just accepted an offer, so there’s that decision made for me...

Mine have walked across two fields to school alone since they were 10.

Sorry to hear that Ginazon.

Yes please! We'd love that. We have a bit of a walk across a green space (not quite a muddy field) on the way to school and it's a lovely lovely way to start the day.

Only if you walked back and fowards to school with them. Yes it’s risky OP, and I can see you are worried about that. I get it. Idiots do take advantage of kids when they can.

Are they fields of wheat?