to be fed up of living in a deprived neighbourhood?

[fluffymouse]

We moved neighbourhoods in London to up size. Quite simply we could only afford a place big enough for us as a family in London in a dodgy neighbourhood. By any conventional marker the area is very deprived. It has a rather notorious reputation too, and has meant some people have been reluctant to visit us.

I have tried being positive about the area (it is on the up, like all areas of London that are not already up!). I am starting to think it would be nice to just move out to a nice village now.

Pros of our area:
Good community feel
Crime rate acceptable by London standards
Feels safe for the most part
Diverse neighbourhood - good ethnic foods

Cons:
Drug dealing neighbours who have been verbally abusive and threatening
Antisocial behaviour issues
Very few of the parents at dd's preschool speak English - limiting opportunities for play dates
Local schools - most do well considering, but children starting with attainment well below average, high turnover of pupils, and lots of pupils at early stage of English language acquisition
Very poor provision for children despite there being lots of children in the area - put simply no one bothers to provide as it wouldn't be taken up for the most part. No ballet, gym etc. Even the children centres offer very little.

WIBU to move us all out to a beautiful village up north where we can get a 4 bed house for the price of a bedsit here?

South Manchester also has every activity going and museums, theatres, sporting events. Everything London has at half the price

Oh come on!! Not even close. Not even close.

I beg to differ. Tons of theatres, venues, attractions, world class sports facilities if every type. Top class restaurants. Amazing shopping. Oh hold on - we are missing a palace and the queen

Manchester cannot rival London's museums. It's not possible. I would imagine that the restaurants/shopping could come close, though.

Serious?

In South Manchester what could you do this week?

In London, I could go to world class opera, ballet, theatre, galleries, public lectures, debates, internationally renowned museums (national history, science museum,imperial war museum, v&a to name just a few), exhibitions. I could do something wildly different every single night of the week in London.

So, I go out tomorrow night in South Manchester, tell me, what can I do that would rival the world class entertainment that London has to offer?

The restaurants can't possibly come close.

Tonight, if I fancied pretty much any type of food in the world, I could head to a part of London, and I would be able to get it.

If I fancied a starter in one michelin restaurant, a main course in another michelin star restaurant, a dessert in another michelin star restaurant and then coffee and petit fours in another michelin star restaurant... Could I do that in south Manchester? Because you could in London. And then do exactly the same, going to a different four michelin star restaurants, the following night.

For cuisine, London is pretty much unbeatable. For both variety and fine dining.

Seriously, how often are all you lot trooping off to theatres, galleries and museums? For our family, here in the apparently culture less north, we might go to a museum maybe four times a year, see a band once a month, go to the theatre three or four times, a gallery, again maybe three or four times.

Our cultural needs are perfectly well met, (admittedly a trip to London will probably be included in that lot). Are all the Londoners filling every spare minute with cultural activity? Are they doing it to get out of their pokey flats? To be honest, during the five years I lived in London it was my observation that it was mostly tourists doing all that kind of thing.

It's affordable rent, not affordable homes. HA tenants aren't being offered homes for life any more - 5 years seems to be the standard lease, following a 'successful' 6 month trial.

People in situations in which LAs are obliged to house them are being shipped out of London. Large swaths of social housing are being knocked down to make way for new private developments, of which a small % may be 'affordable' ie 80% of the market rent. People on either a medium or low income will not be able to afford these.

There aren't 'vacancies' to fill. People live for years in temporary accommodation, being moved frequently, having to uproot children from schools, more costly commutes into work, before being 'offered' accommodation miles away.

I'm not disputing that 20/30s professionals are locked out of a greater and greater part of London. Just saying that people on low income are too.

The bedroom tax and universal credit are/will also be effective in the social cleansing of London.

Daft argument but we have more than ten major award winning museums - maybe smaller than London but more than your average person goes to in a year. Heaps of art galleries with full programmes. We have loads of top class theatre venues - I have seen ballet opera classical and contemporary in recent history. Three top class universities with lecture programmes. Music arenas too. I lived in London for years and it's much more accessible here for your average person. Oh and top class schools too

I'm going to The Ruling Class on Thursday. We went to the British Museum for my son's school project over the weekend.

We go on a cultural excursion once every 2/3 weeks on average, but we certainly did not do anything close to this when we had toddlers.

I can only assume you have never step foot in our amazing city. I am looking forward to an amazing 4 day programme of Chinese New Year events this month and then the international arts festival.

Tinkly you are right - we do loads now the kids older, but they did tons of stuff pre age 5 as its all really close. It's dirt cheap to get into town and tons of stuff is free. In London it was the very rich or tourists that seemed to be out doing the sights and theatres of central London. I was earning loads at the time, but most people found it all too expensive other than occasional treat.

I worked on a project at Manchester Met University for a year. It's a great city, it's just not London.

There aren't 'vacancies' to fill. People live for years in temporary accommodation, being moved frequently, having to uproot children from schools, more costly commutes into work, before being 'offered' accommodation miles away.

Christina, what happens to the LA/HA flats when their tenants die, then? Surely that results in a vacancy. Do you mean to say that there are relatively few vacancies?

I live in South Manchester and it's awesome - beautiful restaurants, theatre, culture, scenery and attractions. The schools are top notch and we enjoy a wonderful lifestyle. London is a couple of hours away by train if we want to visit and that's all we want to do....visit. I wouldn't swap the lifestyle I have here to live in London. No thanks.

Enjoying. Have you ever been near Manchester or are you too busy going to all these restaurants, museums and ballets?

Of course I imagine that you are one of these people who considers 'The North' to be a third world country or grim.

You carry on paying through the nose to live in London and the rest of us will enjoy the rest of the country thanks.

enjoying

I would probably be eating out of bins if I lived in London- never mind Michelin starred restaurants.

Pipbin - couldn't have put it better myself - well done

And of course us Manc dwellers are internationally recognised as the one most welcoming communities in the country. We are an amazingly friendly and welcoming bunch who think they are lucky to have never lived in London or escaped if they did

Pipbin I know you said earlier that all us Londoners think that everywhere outside the capital is a cultural wasteland. I don't think that, but you can't argue that you can access all the same things in Manchester as you can in London (I know it wasn't you who said that btw). London has more museums than anywhere in the world. It's not just the Science museum and the V&A, it's all the little ones like the Royal College of surgeons museum and the tea and coffee museum. There are approximately 300 and between 3 DCs, I've been to about 90. And they;re (nearly) all free.
There are approx 1,500 gallery spaces and that's not including pop ups.
There are hundreds of theatres - it's not just the west end, there are all the small and fringe ones.
And there are countless musical venues with one of the most diverse ranges of musical events in the world due to the diversity of the population.
As I said earlier, it's fine for everyone else in the UK to go on about how great it is where they live - how friendly everyone is, how beautiful the scenery is, how they love being so near the beach etc but, if Londoners say that they love all the cultural stuff on offer, they're smug and arrogant and up themselves. London is in a league of its own in terms of cultural variety - it's bound to be because of its sheer size if nothing else.

Enjoying was talking about South Manchester.

It's years since I've been to Manchester. I'd love to know in which part of South Manchester this Utopian paradise full of culture exists. I have heard it's much improved in the last few years but it needed to be. There's only a handful of theatres that I can remember.

I love Manchester. I would love to move there if I could get a decent job. But the cultural stuff that the capital offers is on a whole other league to what there is in Manchester or any other British city.

I freely admit I live in a what I consider a shit hole part of London. For as long as I'm living here I'll continue to enjoy the things that only happen here - plays that won't ever tour, certain world class museums. I don't have to faff around booking train tickets and hotels. I can walk ten minutes and have a choice of ten different cuisines when I have the money and I can get almost anywhere in town in thirty minutes on a bus which is a nice feeling...after I've run the gauntlet of crack addicts and beggars, that is .

Another vote for Manchester, take a look at this year's Manchester International Festival, one of the highlights for me.

We live in SK9 (Cheshire- Wilmslow/Alderley Edge etc), we commute to Manchester 30 mins by train. Train to London is under 2 hours.

A totally refurbished 4 bed, near an excellent rated primary, cost 265k. Also a £10 taxi ride to Manchester Airport from here.

The percentage of pupils without English as a first language is just 7%, it's actually one of the downsides here that it's not very culturally diverse.

Ha ha Molton - you are almost the Surrey equivalent lol. It does get less and less diverse after about 5 miles from the city centre. Areas closer in are in contrast buzzing ethnic pots.