Moving to East Grinstead advice

[sunlover1123]

Hi,

We are relocating from East Croydon which has served us well for the last 10 years and we’ve built great relationships with our neighbours etc which we will be sad to lose.

We now have a DS who is 3 months old (our first) and before he was born it was fun going to parties in Clapham with glitter on our faces coming home in the wee hours of the morning…. now I’m BF and looking out in the early morning of party goers coming back home haha 😂 how life changes!

Just wondering what is in East Grinstead locally in terms of activities?
In East Croydon we have HomeStart, free children centres which do free baby sensory and mum meet ups etc.

Finding a Friendly baby cafe and a breastfeeding support group would also be helpful but I’m not having much luck finding them online so if anyone can recommend would be much appreciated!

DS hates driving so the furthest we can go in a car is 15 minutes or a pram walk of up to 30 mins or so before we need to stop somewhere for a feed etc.

moving to our dream home and hoping to find a new group of local mums :)

It's worth joining local Facebook groups for the area. You'll get a feel for the place and be able to ask questions of people already living there. There's very likely to be a mums/parents-specific one too. Best of luck with your move!

I don't know East Grinstead that well but have you joined any local Facebook groups for that area first? There's East Grinstead News and Services which might give you an idea of what's available.
With it being in West Sussex you'll be close to the East Sussex, Kent and Surrey borders so you'll hopefully have lots of options for activities with DS.

Also Forest Row in East Sussex isn't that far away, it's a beautiful place to live. A very bohemian village, with lots going on culturally and a good community feel to it.
Winnie the Pooh country will be right on your doorstep - Hartfield and The Ashdown Forest - as DS grows up there's a lot of activities for children to enjoy.
Lucky you discovering all this - we've been near the area over 20 years now, had our children here and love it!

Thanks for that great suggestion, I have done and I can see there is a real sense of community. Can't wait for it to happen

Yes have joined the FB groups - they are amazing thank you for the suggestion!

How have you found this move? We live in east Croydon and are also looking at houses in east grinstead.. how have you found it so far? I'm (hoping) it's not comparable in terms of the drugs/homelessness/crime of Croydon that is literally on our doorstep where we currently live? How about how multicultural it is? And how welcoming for mums?

Sorry to jump on an old post but there's not many mentioning east grinstead and it's one of two contenders for area for us

@boymamaof2 what is your second option?
We love it here, no real pollution and you can see the stars at night. We are super outdoorsy anyway and so this area fitted the bill for us.
be warned most people are waiting for the general election and Interest rates to go down so it’s slim pickings atm. We still check with agents and nothing new is on the market…this isn’t our forever home so we continue to keep our eyes peeled.

The mum network is very friendly and supportive and there is a real sense of community. That being said you don’t have the diversity as you have in East Croydon so if you’re looking for that Crawley or Horley would be a better option. We are a bilingual family and feel we are the minority here but don’t mind.

I’d suggest coming for the day to look at the area and high street as well as joining a mum and baby group so you get to see first hand what the area is like.

My only frustrations are 1. Real lack of NHS dentists and as such we are on a waiting list. 2. Lack of GP surgeries who take patients… we are lucky as we are part of Moatfield and most people are surprised that we managed to get into the good one! 3. A lack of breastfeeding support - it’s all bottles here and there is only 1 NHS drop in session a week… no idea what people do if they struggle! 4. Tories scrapped the children’s centres here… means you have to pay for every activity you go to, think of baby sensory Classes etc they are £15 a pop so it can get quite costly… that said the churches put on free ones.

it’s definitely safer here and the schools look lovely which is fab… wished I’d moved sooner!

feel free to PM me x

Question: What do you get over time if you decant East Croydon into East Grinstead?

Answer: East Croydon.