Relocation advice - straight talking!

[checkedcloth]

I would really appreciate some straight talking advice.

DH and I are considering relocating to Devon, from Surrey. We have some friends in the country but no family. We have two DC’s aged 10 and 8. Clearly this would uproot our children from their schools and friends (both of which they love).

We have massively outgrown our house, we are town centre and I’m fed up with not being able to park near our house after an hours drive home from work. House prices where we are are crazy, we cannot afford the 4 bed detached house that we would love.

My salary would stay the same, I’m a senior nurse in the NHS and DH could work remotely from home. So our money would go so much further.

I my head I believe we would have such an improved quality of life, more outdoor activities, beaches, great local food etc. I’m conscious that this may be influenced by visits to friends which are breaks/holidays and not real life.

We’d like to live in a village / small town with good access to beaches and the county.

Are we absolutely crazy to do this? Is it totally irresponsible to move your kids like this?

I’d love some straight talking advice from anyone who has been through this and made either decision.

Thank you

I live in a Suffolk village, DS is 15. The saving grace is that there are 3 boys the same age in the village who all get on well. They spend hours walking, playing football/ cricket, canoeing and photography/ sketching. However, without that life would be very different! If this had been a normal summer I’d have spent it as a taxi, TBF sharing with others but still a lot of driving.

The countryside is beautiful now, but drab and depressing in February and the roads are horrible in winter. DS travels hours each way for sports practice and can’t do it be public transport, so I spend about 10 hours a week driving him for that.

However, he likes the fields and space out here. Hates the idea of moving into a packed city.

Move to somewhere close enough that you keep the same schools. It seems that you hate your house and that is never a good reason to completely move area.

I live just over the Devon/Cornwall border. We moved here due to my husband being in the RN.
There are 3 grammar schools in Plymouth and some great community schools. My children grew up here and have been very happy. They both were keen on sport and made friends through their clubs and different ones from school. They were able to get into Plymouth on local buses and we didn't end up as a taxi service as much as I had expected.
We have family in Reading and my SIL does far more running around as she does not think it is safe for them to travel at night there.
In fact when my husband left the forces, we chose to stay here and the children did too.

We did it, NW town to Exeter, Devon, 10 years ago but we did it before kids. We have no family in the area and that is hard but we have a good friendship network and there's good holiday clubs nearby so we cope.
Do you have a preferred area? We live in a spot which is walkable to town by also good rail and bus links so lot worried about that.
Quality of life, we are very pleased to have made the move. We're about a 25 min drive away from multiple coast towns and beaches, near enough to town if we need anything, lovely restaurants etc.
Schools, we got our kids into the good local primary school , there's lots of good schools in the area but will depend on your catchment. Also a couple of decent private schools.

We rented for the first year while we sold our other house and then bought our current house about 8-9 years ago and had our children.

Be warned though, especially if you go south Devon way that the tourists (especially this year!) Make it feel very busy!

We love it. Great schools, beautiful countryside, houses, lots to do. I don’t mind driving the kids to stuff and through lockdown we felt very lucky to be where we are. We could live anywhere as our jobs allow it and this is where we choose to be. Pre-covid flights too and from London were cheaper and more reliable than the train, internationally we tend to fly from Birmingham because it’s a MUCH nicer airport experience than LHR and cheaper to leave the car etc. My kids use the local buses and there are open Lenny of taxis. Like pp have said August can be very difficult with the tourists. But it’s the only traffic we see really and they only know the obvious places to go. We tend to go away for a couple of weeks and have friends to stay for the rest so summer is fun.

If either of your children have disabilities I’d be a bit cautious. Special Schools are thin on the ground.

I live in Sussex, about five miles from Chichester.
Festival Theatre
South Downs
Goodwood
Singleton Open air Museum
Amberley
Transport links to Southampton, Brighton, Portsmouth, London
The Witterings
Beaches

Chichester itself is expensive, but surrounding areas can be cheaper. You’d certainly get a four bedroom house from your Surrey budget.

It does depend on what you and the DC are into. If they’re genuinely outdoorsy (year round), and enjoy spending SOME time alone, then that’s great. You’ll need to be happy with them going doing things with friends that aren’t “organised” which will get scarier as they get older - eg body boarding, swim in open water, whatever. Smaller places mean they have to get on with whoever’s there, which can be great but could also be a nightmare. You’re probably best placed to know if your DC will be happy with a limited circle of peers or not.
But if they’re more super-keen on organised sports or cultural stuff then that’s going to be harder to maintain.

I grew up in a properly rural area. It’s swings and roundabouts, you just have to figure out what you will and won’t sacrifice.

I agree with PP that moving area because you’ve grown to hate your house (and neighbours!) over lockdown is a recipe for disaster - but I get that you don’t want to hang around given school years of DC.

We have recently relocated from the south coast to Norfolk,the best thing we have ever done. These are the steps we took, lots of desk research, to indentify the right location, crime rates etc. Then we booked accommodation close to areas we were considering. We liked what we saw, put our house on the market and moved, yay! It takes a lot of courage to move somewhere new,but it gives you a new life. Financially we are much better off, our adult kids are really happy & settled, no regrets at all. It won’t be our final move, I would be happy to relocate again later.