AIBU to be so worried about moving to the right area in Surrey I may not end up moving at all

[blunderandfrightening]

Moving out of London and preferred area is Surrey. The thing is I can't see us ever moving because we are so worried about getting the area right.
AIBU to think the choice is so vast that we will never move.

Where would you recommend in the Surrey area.

Good schools, pretty location but close to a station?

I live in one of the above-mentioned 'rich and snobby' areas (Walton on Thames) and have found it anything but. There are people who'll brag about their bonuses and cars, but they're easily avoided in my experience and pretty much everyone I've met is pretty down to earth and lovely. I've had a run of ill health recently and people we barely know have been knocking on our door with a casserole, offers of childcare or any other help we might need.

We moved here from north London 3.5 years ago and don't regret it at all.

becca

That's lovely

I'd look at Godalming or Farnham. Elstead if you want more rural.

Becca that's so lovely to hear & yes, I have some super neighbours too.

And we're about to move to Walton on Thames/Hersham/Weybridge depending on where we can find a rental home. We've got good friends in the area so already know it quite well as I've stayed there a lot when I've been working in London. We've not found it snobby at all!

How old are your DSes? As you would be wise to start with schools, and then work out where to live from there. There aren't many senior boys day schools in the Guildford area, for example, so if you have boys coming up for 11 or 13, then you would need to look at that as a priority..

I think Weybridge/Oxshot and areas between and Hampton Court school is a winning combination.

There's the American Community School in Cobham which is very nice.

I've just moved from Esher, 25 mins to Waterloo, lovely area, village feel, Kingston close and good for shopping. We moved to the midlands to be near family after DD arrived, but I loved it there. Best of both worlds with living in Surrey and working in London.

Walton on Thames is close and much less 'rich'. Claygate, Cobham and Oxshot are very nice and £££.

Guildford/Goldaming are nice too. Can you go for a drive and see where you like the 'feel' of?

I've just moved away from Surrey - Reigate area. I really enjoyed my time there (approx 10 years) and found it easy to make lots of good friends (there are lots of friendly people in Surrey!) but I'm happy to have moved away - to North Bucks. If I was in your shoes I would think carefully about why Surrey over and above other areas that have good commuting links to London.

Over the last 5 years or so we started to feel like our patch of Surrey (Reigate/Dorking/Leatherhead/Epsom) was creaking at the seams a bit. Huge increase in traffic, overcrowded schools, busy busy busy. I just don't think the infrastructure can cope anymore. It only seems to take one incident on the M25 and all surrounding areas become grid locked. Yes, it's good for train links to London, but having to get on the M25 every time you want to go somewhere else in the UK needs some careful thought in my opinion (especially that bit of the M25 J7 through to M3/M4 Junctions). I sometimes felt a bit hemmed in.

However, after the hustle and bustle of London maybe it won't seem as busy to you ? If it wasn't for the traffic and the huge surge in population we would still be there. But it's lost the semi-rural feel that I enjoyed 10 years ago (although I'm sure this can still be had in villages further south from where we were).

Good luck in your decision making though! Exciting to make a big move like you are planning!

Still reeling from a post a few pafes back that referred to Virginia Water as Vag Water, aaaaaarffff.

Surbiton has good state and indy schools, green and leafy, and 20 mins into waterloo.

Vag water totes hilar!

aper I aim to please

Godalming is lovely,DH is from there. He also suggests Chilworth(sp?)

A 4/5 house in a village outside guildford is your budget 1 million?

great I will check out Chilworth thank you Hamnvik

Yes budget is fine Sarcy. I know it's expensive though.

Mrs Rambo's point about the M25 is a good one. I'm forever saying that we need a bypass through the area, except the M25 is sort of already provided for that purpose. If either of you has to drive to get to work do seriously bear traffic in mind. It'd drive me utterly demented to have to do that sort of commute every day . Traffic is bad from about 3pm onwards. I'm a SAHM and avoid anything but very local journeys outside the 9am to 3pm slot if I can.

I'd second the post re woking. I'm from rural wales but lived in woking for 10 years (1994-2004) I liked it then, had two of my three kids there. But I spent a few days there last week and it is really depressing.
Brook wood/pirbright is worth a look though if in your budget

Another vote for Farnham, we moved here a year ago and love it. Lots of nice restaurants, pubs and shops including independent ones. Fab schools and a brilliant sense of community. We have a farmers market, craft markets at the maltings, a food festival, a veg growing co-operative, two carnivals, an annual duck race and loads more!

We're in the process of considering moving counties to Suffolk and I would say just take your time over it. I started by checking travel times by car and train to my family in London and also looked at schools. Also how much money we will have for a house and what we can get. We picked a couple of areas to concentrate on, asked around, looked in more detail at what's on, looked at local paper online, crime figures, local politics.
it's then REALLY important to take some time to visit the areas, what you see and feel when you go somewhere can be very different from everything on paper/online. When we did this we immediately ruled out some areas and found a couple of others that we love.
We went through this process a few years ago looking at an area in Kent and in the end ruled a move out completely as commuting would have been a nightmare for DH and we decided we were better off where we were!

I'm currently near Leatherhead and agree about the traffic and trains. Horrendous queues from 4pm if you live near M25 junctions. A slow 45mins train to Waterloo or Victoria. From my experience Surrey sometimes feels like one big commuter town. I'm going back up North but if I were to stay in the SE I would look at moving to the top end of the Metropolitan Line.

How about Hampshire? Winchester Alton Petersfield etc. May be a bit too far away from London for your commute but very nice areas. West Sussex is also very lovely.

I'm in Epsom with 2 daughters and we absolutely love it. DH's commute is very short and he's home everyday by 5.30.

DD1's school is fantastic. There's so much for families to do around here and we have loads of new and old friends.

It can be expensive, but I think it's worth it. It's an area where you can feel super rural in about 10 minutes, or you can go to London just for lunch, dinner or theatre very easily...

Forgot to add we live in Sutton which is Surrey/south London borders. I wouldn't recommend moving here particularly, but one of the advantages of Surrey for us is accessibility to green belt, the Surrey Hills are beautiful, South Downs not too far and the coast is 1 and half hours away which is very doable for a day trip. We've considered moving further into Surrey but houses too expensive. My sister in law lives in Bookham which is quite village-y. But my DH commutes 1 day a week on the M25 and it's hell. Honestly. Which is why we want to move. And if we do go anywhere for the day by car we always leave at the crack of Dawn so as not to be parked on the M25 for hours.

Same as Jaded, I lived there for a couple of years, and hated it. Oddly, seeing as so many posters have mentioned it, I particularly hated Epsom, I thought it was quite rough, and it was HELL on big race days. Didn't like Leatherhead either, Dorking was okish. Walton v v keeping up with the Joneses.

I also found the state schools to be rubbish, my driving force for moving out of Surrey was to get the DDs to decent schools. Unless you're going private, or we had a rare bad experience, I'd move anywhere but there for schools.

Car was pranged by careless drivers so many times I lost count; side mirror was regularly removed by idiots over the white line, I was reversed into at junctions. Worst driving I've ever come across.

Small pockets are ok. The shopping is ok. If you've got a good budget, I'd look elsewhere, add 20 minutes onto the commute, and get somewhere really lovely.