North East thread 6: Everyone's welcome!

[Someaddedsugar]

Just starting a new thread for anyone who wants to join!

Hi everyone. If this isn't appropriate, please let me know and I'll create a thread instead, but I was hoping to pick your collective brains. This will be long sorry!
We're planning to relocate to C. Durham next year. We're currently renting and would have to rent for a year first as I can't imagine buying from hundreds of miles away would work! Unfortunately, this complicates things a bit as I don't want to move DD school again after a year.
We're coming up in a few weeks to do a little recce and will likely do so again before we move. But I'd love some opinions/advice if possible, if I lay out what we need. I've spent a year on this plan and even have a spreadsheet (yes, I'm sad), but nothing beats local knowledge.

DS2 will be able to transfer his college course to E.Durham college, at their Houghall campus. So needs to be either on one of their own bus routes or otherwise accessible.
DD will be going into year 10 and I've promised her a school with a sixth form so she won't have to move again after 2 years. Also this will suit her better.
DS1 is going to take a gap year and would like to train as a bus driver, so needs access to the cities but he'd be driving.
Public transport needed for the other two to get around and reasonably near things for them to do would be nice (currently I spend half my life ferrying them about and we're over 30 minutes drive to anywhere with anything vaguely interesting). So less than 45 mins on the bus to either Durham or Newcastle would be good.

Jobs wise, I'm a nurse and DH is a lorry driver, so that should be the easy part.

Housing, we'd need 4 bedrooms (even renting, it's part of the negotiations with the teens that the older 2 get their own room!) and aiming to buy within a year with a max budget of £250k. Need a garage for DH and DS2's hobbies, so rules out cheaper housing like terraces. This narrows down the potential towns quite a bit, especially as we'd need to rent first.

So far we're considering
Chester-Le-Street - excellent location wise, has 2 secondary schools with 6th forms though may be oversubscribed? Some housing in our price range but 4 bed rentals seem very hard to find.
Consett - bit far out, but still better connected than were we are now. Affordable. School doesn't seem brilliant but does have 6th form.
Bishop Auckland - bit far SW, but does have trains to Darlington and buses to Durham. Has all the amenities we need and seems to be gaining more. Secondary looks good. Town seems to have a poor reputation?
Durham outskirts/villages - struggling to work out secondary schools as we'd be very unlikely to get into DJ and the others don't seem to have 6th forms?

I have spent hundreds of hours scouring the Internet and old threads about areas, so these are our current shortlist. Apologies for the super long post, if you've read it then thank you! Any advice greatly appreciated.

Have you looked at Framwellgate Moor/Newton Hall @RagzRebooted - I'm not sure of current sale prices but you might find something in that area to rent while you're looking? It would give you access to Durham city centre relatively quickly, and there's a comp with sixth form at FM (I can't comment on the school personally but have colleagues who's kids go there).

Secondary options in Bishop Auckland aren't good, that's the reason why we have gone private for Yr 7 onwards. Durham much better for schools however house prices reflect this.

@Someaddedsugar thank you. Yes I had looked at that area, not a lot seems to come up in our budget unfortunately. But if we could get a rental there then I guess we'd be better placed to jump on anywhere that did come up.

@twistyizzy oh really? That's good to know, thank you.
I suppose in terms of Durham, if we rented and got a school place could always move further out when we buy and DD could bus in if not too far. We're currently 6 miles from the two secondaries we've used (the one DS1 and DS2 went to wasn't great but they did fine) so DD is used to that.

Framwellgate school has sixth form. Also don’t discount Durham sixth form, lots of teenagers choose to go there.
I know Sacriston has a bad wrap but the new builds are lovely. No bother on new builds bits. Bus service to Chester/Durham/Arnison.
Also the bus picks up for Houghall.

They are also building new houses at Heugh Edge which an area of Sacriston. Once you are in Chester le Street or Durham buses are quite good.
Good luck Co Durham is lovely.

Forgot to say Hermitage and Park View both have sixth forms. St Leonard’s has sixth form.
We also have New college Durham and Durham sixth forms.
Hermitage /Park view and Framwellgate are all good schools.
Durham Johnston might be the best, but most children don’t get to go there!

Both DCs went to Durham Sixth Form, but back then (around 2005) wasn't it part of Framwellgate School?

At the time we lived in Willington - which I wouldn't recommend. They had gone to the comp there, but it didn't have a sixth form. Options were Bishop or Durham to continue education.

It was great for them, and they made friends from all over the district.

Sacriston was also an area of consideration, thank you. I'll add it to the list of places to explore. Is it a bit more rural, but on bus routes? If so, that would be perfect. Is Fram the secondary you'd go to from there?
It's really hard to get an idea of distance and stuff from maps (some places look close and then turn out to be ages on the bus, like where we are now!) and nowhere online seems to tell you about school buses, so it's hard to work out!

My recommendation would be to start off renting close to or in Durham. The geography of the area means that Durham is a bus transport hub. The drawback in that is that sometimes you have to get a bus into Durham, and then another bus out again, when if you drove you'd just drive straight there along back roads, quicker and shorter.

I hope that makes sense.

@RagzRebooted yes most teenagers either go Fram or Hermitage, most who are catholic go to Leonard’s. Because it’s only about 2 miles.
I know about 10 other families who go to all 3. Good and bad at all 3. But isn’t that the way.

Roughly where are you moving from? So we can compare your geography to ours IYSWIM.

I came up to Durham as a student in the early 1970's and have stayed here ever since. I'm from Croydon, and still go back to visit family. It's 3 hours on the train to King's Cross from Durham Station, which is brilliant.

Yes, Sacriston is a bit more rural, we do get snow , 😆.
It’s only 5 minutes drive from A167. Direct route to A1. But it’s has some shops, excellent GP surgery. Amazing walks, Waldridge fell on your doorstep.
Broom house farm etc. Not forgetting Beamish, which you must visit.
There is dance classes. Fitness classes. Football and cricket
I wouldn’t live anywhere else.

@AlviarinAesSedai thank you your posts have been really helpful. DD is adamant no Catholic school, so that's out. We're lucky that she's one of those quiet, very academic children that doesn't really need much from school as she'll do well regardless, so only concern really would be making friends/bullying and to be honest that could go either way at any school! She'd prefer a smaller school, but wants to be able to stay for 6th form rather than moving again for college, which is fair enough.
I think you're right re closer to Durham the better, though the countryside further out is more like what we're used to (we're rural Sussex). I'd trade that for public transport though, as we struggle with that now they're teens.

The bus to Durham goes the same way as you would drive. Durham train station is excellent.
There is lots to do. The bus service is as good in Sacriston as Newton Hall.
Air quality is excellent and lots of open spaces. But minutes from Durham/Chester le Street.

@TheSummerySilveryPussycat we're in East Sussex, near Kent border. Beautiful but surprisingly isolated given how near we are to London! Hellishly expensive. DS2's college is an hour on the bus and costs £110 a month for their bus. No weekend jobs here for them. No buses at the weekend and only 1 an hour until 6pm. It's been a lovely place to raise kids, with gorgeous village school, but we're renting a (shitty) 3 bed for well below market rate and even then it's gone up £200 in the last year (and would cost us £300k to buy in the state it's in, which needs a lot of work!). Would like to move somewhere we can buy a place but also the kids could afford to leave home and rent/buy themselves. Here we have so many mid 20s still at home as nowhere to go. Also not many jobs unless you commute to London.

I would maybe suggest joining Mums in Durham? Facebook group.
For Sacriston, the Facebook groups can be very useful/funny.
Chester le Street has a good Facebook page.
They do complain a lot. But don’t diss the area. If you aren’t local. Lol
I will also say, even though we are an ex mining village. We are very welcoming.

You're doing an excellent job of selling Sacriston, it's moved right up the list! I should have posted on here a year ago...

You will have people talk to you at Bus stop’s etc. The Fulforth centre, community centre has lots on every day.

I will stop now. Only thing don’t move to what I call old pit estate. Acorn close/Lingley close. And some of the terraces streets in centre.
We are one of them villages that you can walk 5 minutes and is so different.
I know someone who moved from Chester le Street to a new build part and she wouldn’t move .

Also Hospital with A&E 5 minutes away.

I tried joining that FB group ages ago but wasn't let in. Maybe because I don't live there (though I did say in the entry questions that we wanted to!).
I reckon I'll fit right in, my kids are always telling me I'm wierd for starting conversations with strangers wherever we go! I'm up for joining in with whatever locally, to make friends so hopefully that side will work out fine.

I talk to anyone too. I always give advice on which bus stop, where things are . I must have a friendly face.
I don’t, I’m just middle aged women
But good luck with your move. Lots of HGV jobs about. And nursing isn’t just hospitals.
Also go north east is always recruiting, for your bus driver wanting DS.
I think if you have a good job, quality of life up here is great.
People do seem to come and never leave. 😆

Framwellgate Moor is extremely well placed, with dr, dentist, optician, chemist, local co-op, local Sainsbury (not that good but OK), fish and chips, various other take-aways, and a Greggs which seems to have very long opening hours. I can walk to any of these in 5 minutes. Also Arnison Centre fairly near.

New College (further education) is based in Fram as well.

Buses from Front Street to Durham, and various other places via Durham, and direct to Newcastle, fastest journey 45 min IIRC.

Lots of medical staff rent flats near where I live, some have been lovely neighbours from all over the world .

The key to understanding the layout of Co. Durham, and of Durham itself, is to understand where the rivers run, particulary the Wear and its tributaries.