I live here?

[ButternutSoup]

My husband and I are South African and are immigrating to the UK (with an ancestry visa as my grandmother is British). While we were researching nice places to live, we stumbled upon this funny website called ilivehere.co.uk, where people write scathing reviews of their towns/cities. It must be satire, as nearly every town is made out to be some kind of crime-infested hellhole, which can't be true.

Some of the reviews do seem to contain elements of truth, I'm sure, but which ones? I've always had a romantic notion of living in the Scottish Highlands, but the "I Live Here" review makes it seem like the setting of The Hills Have Eyes.

Can anyone here recommend nice towns/suburbs? Our three criteria are: low crime rate, clean air, and house prices that are not clown-shoes expensive. We don't care that much about weather (my irritatingly pale skin has had enough sunshine for a lifetime and every time I go to the dermatologist his warnings become more severe), so maybe somewhere up north would be nice?

Between the gushing estate agent write-ups and the pessimistic "I Live Here" reviews, I don't know what to believe.

Stow-on-the-Wold?

Where will you be working though? That will dictate a lot!

Where do you want to live. I’d start there so we can narrow it down for you. I’ll start with don’t live in…

Kings Lynn
Luton
Swindon
Reading

As my experience of those places are in the negative.

Depends on do you want a town? Rural? Good transport links to a city? If you give a list of creteria like that people may be able to help more

Nah. DH had to drive through there today and the traffic was awful.

Yes it always is at weekends and holidays. The Fosse Way was designed for chariots not caravans.

You can get actual crime statistics- perhaps start there, as well as the areas of deprivation index https://www.ons.gov.uk/visualisations/dvc1371/#/E07000223

We live near another ancient trackway, but round here we're a bit more advanced and have invented the bypass.😂

Avoid:

Luton.
Slough.
Romford.
Ilford.
Bradford.
Bolton.
Derby.
Wolverhampton.
West Bromwich.
Milton Keynes.

Most cathedral cities are nice and quite well-to-do, particularly the ones ending in -ester:

Chester.
Chichester.
Winchester.
Also: York, Canterbury and Exeter.

It is difficult to see how a bypass would work at Stow. It is very hilly so to get round would be quite an expense. Moreton-in-Marsh would want one also. They would want to be levelled-up !

I’ve never heard the expression “clown shoes expensive” but basically you have London prices which possibly do fall into that category, and then expensive (but cheaper than London) in the rest of the country. Are jobs and schools not a factor?

I’d suggest Harrogate or Edinburgh. Depends also how much space you want for your money.

You should binge watch many of the hundreds of episodes of Location, Location, Location aka Kirstie and Phil.

And The League of Gentlemen

Whats your reason for moving here? Do you want to be near any family or friends? What age/lifestage are you - do you have or plan children, are you wanting good retirement facilities and.community, or ample job opportunties? You say town/suburbs, which implies easy access to facilities/shops/entertainment is important; but you also say Scottish Highlands, which rather implies the opposite.

What's your budget, and for what size place (note we don't use floor areas in the UK, but numbers of bedrooms)?

Wiltshire has one of the lowest crime rates in the country and it's a lovely county.

Not sure you should take much notice of a website like that tbh. Roughly where do you think you want to be in the UK? If you’ve decided you’re coming here, you must have some idea of where/what you want. I suggest once you’ve narrowed it down to some rough areas you join their local FB groups and see what the local community actually sounds like. I live somewhere in the SE that will regularly get slagged off on MN by people who’ve been here once, twenty years ago - the reality of how great the community is wouldn’t be apparent if listening only to them.

I think to get useful advice you do need to give some idea of your budget and what you expect to be able to get for that budget.

Which country in the UK do you think you will stay in? That might help us help you

They're a pair of insufferable snobs who look down their noses at many places that are actually fine, I wouldn't take anything they say seriously.

Stow on the Wold looks beautiful.

We don't know yet, but looking at the job opportunities in our industries, it seems that we will probably start off in the London and surrounds area. We won't have much choice then, but I am thinking long-term - if and when we are able to choose to move somewhere else. Currently work remotely and are hoping to secure remote work in the UK once we've been there for a while, in which case we'd like to move to a less expensive part of the UK with cleaner air and a low crime rate.

Sussex would fit the bill if you want to be near-ish to London? Places like Alfriston, Ringmer, Polegste and Rye are all very pretty?

Thanks. I've visited King's Lynn before and it seemed okay, although there were some teenage girls fighting each other in the park which was strange and unnerving to see.

Somewhere not too far away from a hospital. Peaceful, green, with a rural/village/suburban feel, but not too far away from a town or city with cultural attractions, theatre, etc. We would buy a car so that we can travel around at will, so somewhere where there is bad traffic would probably not be too good.