If you live in Harrogate or surrounding areas…

[MintyCedric]

What do you get up to on your days off?

I’m looking to move next spring/summer and going up for a recce at the end of the month.

Going to check out the leisure centre and do some coffee shop people watching, walk the old railway line between Bilton and Knaresborough and hopefully get up in time to do market day at the latter (I’m driving up from the south coast on Wednesday and only staying four nights on this trip).

I’m thinking cheap/free local stuff rather than touristy days out. I want to try and get a feel for what everyday life might be like and how easy it will be to meet new people.

Worth looking at coach gym and Beckwithshaw health club too. Two good alternatives

Hi Op. I live in the Woodlands area of Harrogate ( over the road from the showground). Starbeck is actually a good area ( I walk to the train station there). I like to spend time around Hookstone Woods ( also near the showground). Harlow Carr is a great place to visit as are Valley Gardens.
There are plenty of places to eat and drink ( we have Bettys in town and another at Harlow Carr). Horticap near Harlow Carr has a good cafe and sells plants. Knaresborough has good places to visit too. Rudding Park has an amazing spa.

If you love Harrogate and masham but think masham is too rural have you looked at Northallerton ( about 45 mins from Harrogate).
It has a bettys too!
Smaller than Harrogate but bigger and not as rural as masham.

Bilton is above Starbeck I would say. It has really changed in the last 10 years.
They are both much nicer than 98% of any towns in Yorkshire (better than the MN favourite areas such as Roundhay or Moortown in Leeds as an example)

Bilton is a bit rough around the edges, but it does have a nice community feel and some lovely parts. Starbeck on the other hand, I really wouldn't recommend. I grew up in Harrogate but recently moved to a surrounding village near Knaresborough instead as it's a bit cheaper than the extortionate prices in Harrogate and I really don't find Harrogate has all that much to offer anymore compared to what it used to.

@MintyCedric Why are so many people moving here? Especially from the south? The schools are all full! I had to homeschool my DD as there wasn't a single Reception place within 15 miles... The lady at admissions told me there's been over 4,000 additional families than the norm, who have moved to North Yorkshire from down south just that year alone and said that 2,000 of them had moved to Harrogate because of all of the new homes that have been built. Unfortunately they haven't expanded infrastructure/increased services capacity in response! So there's 5+ year waiting lists for Dentists & 1-2 year waiting lists to join Doctors' surgeries. The traffic has always been bad but now it takes over an hour to cross town via Skipton Road, anytime between 1pm-7pm and it's only 3 miles.
DD's school (took 6 months before she got a place!), according to the Head, has more pupils who have recently moved here, than locals. Which I'm not saying is a bad thing in itself but I do think it's very telling!

Is there some sort of 'recruitment' campaign going on in the Home Counties or London or something?

Don't get me wrong, I couldn't care less who moves here or where they're from, as I'd love to move to Cornwall or Devon. I'm just angry at NYC for their lack of action to accommodate all these new people, as it's making existing residents' lives increasingly more difficult.

Also, the end of July is the absolute worst time of the year to come here for a visit as it's the beginning of the summer holidays and will be busier than ever

@Coldia Only 10% of Harrogate is posh in any way shape or form, let me assure you! There are areas that people won’t even drive through!

Born & raised, trust me

@Sasqwatch Bilton is nothing like Starbeck! 🤨😂 You clearly weren't raised in Harrogate

@EnglishBluebell when I compare what I hear from friends about GPs and services in Harrogate to my experience just a few miles away I am shocked.

Bilton is a bit rough around the edges, but it does have a nice community feel and some lovely parts.

Sounds just like me 🤣.

I’m not remotely posh and I’m not looking for that. Croydon born to a Croydon mum and Hackney dad and raised in the ‘burbs’ of a Georgian seaside town twenty minutes from Brighton that’s been a national joke for decades due its numbers of retirees!

I love that there’s plenty of culture up there but without a lot of the wankery and pretention, strong community vibes and lovely countryside. I’m also a diehard autumn/winter person so the weather doesn’t bother me in the slightest.

@EnglishBluebell I hear you re the infrastructure not keeping up with development. They’ve built 850+ new houses on what used to be farmland behind my mum’s house in the last ten years and we’re yet to see the promised primary school or GP surgery.

If it makes you feel any better it’ll be me and the cats, hopefully buying a traditional older house and working in a school rather than taking up places in one!

If anyone wants to spill the tea re the Bilton/Starbeck divide or has any thoughts on Jennyfields and New Park…

@christmaself2020 thanks for the recommendations - do either have a pool as that’s my main criteria.

@MintyCedric I teach at one of the secondary schools and know others via my daughter/ friends so if you want any info on working in a Harrogate school let me know

Take your pick of reasons

WFH means you can keep your London/SE salary and live anywhere.

People up North are nicer.

The pace of life is a little slower.

In most places, you get more house for your money.

London and the SE is overcrowded.

Yorkshire is beautiful!

Actually I was, it’s my home town, and that’s why I said it.
Bilton and Starbeck both historically have a reputation for being the ‘rougher’ areas of Harrogate. I’m sure you know that @EnglishBluebell if you’re a Harrogatonian.

Looking at crime stats the rougher ends of Harrogate are considerably more sedate than where I currently live…and that isn’t terrible!

@flumposie that would be great!

I’m a student welfare assistant at big Co-ed academy currently. Have done lots of school admin in the past but prefer working with the kids so would be looking for something similar/pastoral…either secondary or college ages.

I’m starting a degree with the OU in October as hoping to train as an education mental health practitioner at some point.

Don’t need to work TTO but figured it would be easier to manage the move that way. Ideally put house on market and start job/house hunting early spring - hopefully find a role with a September start so I can move and get sorted over the summer hols.

What parts won't people drive through?
That's just tosh.
I would very happily walk through anywhere in Harrogate- and do!

@Sasqwatch Born & raised! So I know that Bilton has some lovely areas that are nothing remotely like Starbeck! The only part of Bilton that is even close to "rough" is the King Edward's Drive/Byland Rd area - I agree that part is very rough. However once you get to Tennyson Avenue/Hill Top/Meadowcroft & especially Knox Lane, it's beautiful. I can’t call anywhere in Starbeck beautiful.

@Peoneve It's not "tosh" at all! I know of a few people who refuse to drive through the Broadacres or Byland Rd.

No those two gyms don't have pools. Ashville does though as an alternative.

There are lots of lovely areas all across the town. Some have inflated prices due to school catchment so probably worth avoiding them but grammar catchment is only about a mile.
Lots of nice older houses up Harlow hill.
I think it's all relative. There are no truly bad bits of Harrogate.

There's a great women's gym in Pannal called Innovate. There's no pool - it just does group fitness classes and small group strength - but it does have an amazing community so maybe a good place to meet people.

No wankery or pretension in harrogate 😂

I chose not to live in Harrogate because bits of it are rough.

Theres much more to it than grand old buildings and its spa town history these days.

Not posh either, I lived in Bethnal Green, Leyton and Walthamstow in the 90s.

When I moved home to North Yorkshire I knew it wouldn’t be Harrogate, the place where more county lines cross in England.

My parents moved to Meadowcroft in 1975. At the bottom of the garden there was a gate that led out to the fields, maybe that's why it was called Meadowcroft. Tennyson Avenue and all those houses must have been built at the end of the 70s. I don't remember the fields at the back of the garden at all. There's also a road called Fieldway maybe for the same reason. I bemoan the loss of the Bilton Gala.