What part of North-West England should I live in?

[CanIHaveChocolatePlease]

I hope it’s okay to put this in here, I couldn’t see a dedicated section for relocating!

I’m Irish and live in Ireland, but have wanted to live in England for a few years now for various reasons (things like more choices of shops, types of schools, towns etc, not as casual attitudes to rules etc), but I’ve come across better job/training opportunities in England than I can get in Ireland, which makes me want to live there even more now

I’d be targeting moving there late this year/early next year (yes I know I’m mad with the uncertainty of Brexit coming up but I feel that personally it’s the best choice for me!)

My preference has always been the North West region (no offence to any other areas, I like the idea of there being so many areas/towns/regions near each other and feel that the climate, lifestyle etc would suit me best)

I am hoping to do the school-based primary teaching
degree at Edge Hill uni and then work as a teaching assistant during the week, and then maybe a Saturday job in a shop to boost my funds more.

So I would like to be accessible to Ormskirk (where Edge Hill is), but also accessible to more non-student towns and cities, especially Manchester and Liverpool .

I would like to live in a decent sized town rather than in the city or in the rural countryside.

From looking up houses in the area, I think somewhere like the town of Leigh would suit me well, but I would just like people’s advice and opinions so that I wouldn’t regret my choice

I’m single so wouldn’t have to be worrying about having to bring family members over with me

Thanks in advance, I’d really appreciate people’s insights☺️

Altrincham? It's pricey but nice. Loads of Irish people here too.
Cool market area and a great place to live.

Not Altrincham. Bloody pain to get to Edge Hill from there. Ormskirk itself is not bad. Leigh is also not bad. Southport is alright as well. Larger villages at the bottom of Preston are also nice and you'd get a lot for your money. Same in Liverpool itself, which is a cracking city (I am a scouser).

St Helens.

Leigh is shit as is Ormskirk. I went to school near there.
Parbold and Mawdsley are quite nice.

Thanks for all of your answers!☺️

I had just suggested Leigh as it is a decent size, seems to have nice houses for reasonable prices and is relatively central and accessible, but obviously I’m open to suggestions

As it is a school-based teaching programme, I would only have to go to the uni itself a few times a year so I wouldn’t need to be really near to Ormskirk on a daily basis, which would give me more flexibility

I haven’t passed my driving test yet but would hope to get that before I move so that I could get a car and be legal to drive from my house to work/ training

Just out of curiosity, would any of ye have any idea what it would the cost living be for a person on their own in England, but especially in these areas?
Just to have some idea of what it might cost to fund myself over there 🙂

Mawdesley and Eccleston are nice and nearby.

Come live in Burscough! I love it here

Agree burscough or croston would be good choices

Oh I haven’t heard of a lot of these places so I’ll enjoy looking them up!

There hasn’t really been any recent threads about this, so thanks again for all of your up-to-date wisdom and advice!☺️

Wigan. It's a town centre and can get a direct train to liverpool and manchester. You can get the train to southport/blackpool to the beach and fair. If you want less town centre there is a few towns.. Standish, Appleby bridge, orrell, upholland, shevington to name a few towns off the top of my head. All have good public transport and motorway links and also some green space and lovely walks. I live in one of the towns listed above and went to edge hill uni so if you need any advice feel free to private message me (if you can??)

Burscough and croston are lovely places but further away from the motorway (still only 15-20 min but country roads. Eccleston is about 10 minutes off the m6 but also lovely and has some lovely restaurants like an Italian called Verdes.

I did a PGCE at edge hill last year.
Just a word of warning, if you don’t have transport, I really suggest you live near the uni. It is bloody hard work getting there even in a car with limited parking, many queues and many hours spent frustrated sitting doing nothing before you even get to uni.

My PGCE was school based so although I wasn’t there at uni often, the commute was miserable.

Leigh, even commuting by car, would take a while in a morning to get to the uni.

Burscough, Parbold and Appley Bridge are nice places to live.
Or up to Tarleton. Southport has transport links to the major cities.

Okay that’s good to know about Edge Hill itself not being easily accessible for commuting, even for school-based courses- how did you find Edge Hill as a uni?

I’d be hoping to work and therefore get some sort of pay as a Teaching Assistant during the week and then boost it with retail work at the evenings/weekends - I know things would be tight, especially for the first while, but I think it’s the most sensible, long-term way to spend my money 🙂

Depending on the value of the house, I should already have enough saved up for a 5-10% deposit on a house, and would obviously earn as much money as I could here before I’d leave to put towards it, and I’m not a heavy spender so would be willing to spend most of my money on somewhere nice and long term for me to live and on a car and other basics

I would also try to use something like the Help To Buy scheme if I could at all as they seem to contribute towards your savings for your first house deposit

Hi again everyone! Sorry for not coming back to this sooner, I’ve been working a lot so haven’t been free

Thanks again for all of yer suggestions, I really appreciate them

I did get to look up most of the places that ye helpfully suggested, and although I might struggle to get somewhere affordable in some of the nicer places, there’ s lots of nice places mentioned that I will definitely look into

Some of the places that I think I’d consider/target and that I think would suit me the most would be Ormskirk, Pemberton, Burscough, Orrell, Winstanley, Parbold, Mawdsley, Eccleston, Appleby Bridge, Upholland, Shevington, Tarleton, Newton-le-Willows, Chester, Hulton, Rufford, Maghull, Formby, and Aintree , so if anyone has any honest opinions or advice about those places or any other nice places in the area, please let me know as I’d really appreciate it

Oh and two places I’ve come across when looking up the area have been Kirkby (between Liverpool and Ormskirk) and Darwen (near Preston), and seem to be relatively okay and affordable for housing and accessible to nearby areas (especially Kirkby, which is near enough to Liverpool, Ormskirk and Manchester), so if anyone has any thoughts or opinions (good or bad) on those places I’d also really appreciate it!

Thanks again for all of yer opinions, thoughts and advice- I really appreciate them (even if some of them aren’t what I want to hear)

Wirral?
The best areas are west kirby, hoylake and heswall generally. West kirby and hoylake have stations on the wirral line

I wouldn't necessarily describe Darwen as near Preston. It does have good public transport links and housing is cheap plus it has a much better nightlife than neighbouring Blackburn however traffic in Darwen and Preston is a nightmare.

I'm confused how you are going to work as a teaching assistant whilst doing a teaching degree or have I misunderstood?

Darwen is ok, bit run down but great community spirit. It would be a pain to get to Edge Hill regularly from there though and you could find yourself stuck in by bad weather (snow, flooding) in a bad winter. Also not sure of area for teaching practice schools that Edge Hill covers so you could be across the other side of the county when you get to that year.
Tarleton, Burscough, Parboldand Rufford are lovely. Aintree and Kirkby I would avoid, personally. Ormskirk ok.

I'd avoid Kirkby. Or rather, you'd need to look carefully at what part of Kirkby.

I work in Eccleston and it is a lovely, quiet friendly village. Mawdesley, Parbold, Bretherton and Croston are lovely too. However, all these villages are rural and housing is pretty expensive.
Darwen is quite a distance from Edge Hill and can get very snowy in winter (I hate driving in snow, and the thought of that commute fills me with horror). It’s near Blackburn rather than Preston. Also, some parts of it are run down.
Good luck with your search though.

Just to be clear Op, the Eccleston I’m talking about is near Chorley, not the Eccleston in Merseyside.

Thanks again for all of yer advice, I really appreciate it!

To the people asking, it is a school based teaching degree so you mostly learn on the job rather than being based at uni, so I would only have to go to Edge Hill a few times a year, hence why I wouldn’t be too concerned on a daily basis about how near I am to Edge Hill itself

I’m assuming that there’d be a variety of schools in the area that you could work in, hence why I’d be happy to consider living and working in a nearby area, especially if I could target areas that are nice to live and/or work in, even if that meant lowering my expectations regarding to housing

Wigan - perhaps Appley Bridge / Orrell / Pemberton end. Or closer to the town centre, Swinley etc. For good transport links.

WN1, WN2, WN3, WN5, WN6, WN8

I’d have a look near the train stations on the Liverpool to Manchester Via Warrington line and see if anything suits. Warrington itself might not be a bad shout.