To want to get far away from London?

[bluecherry1]

I have a very nice house with a great dh and 2 lovely dc, good jobs and no real worries BUT I live 2 streets away from one of the recent stabbings and it has put me so on edge, crimes rates here seem to be soaring, I hate not letting my children go out to play and don’t even feel totally safe myself walking the 10 minutes home from the station. I know there are nice places in England to live but me and dh are thinking of homeschooling the kids and travelling, we have family in Spain, South Africa and the USA, I want them to experience a carefree life for as long as they can. Ahhhh I’m so confused?

I didn’t mention them because I’m au fait with rightmove,I gave examples of nice areas in the Burghs mentioned
Haringay
Enfield
Were raised as examples of places one wouldn’t want to live,as if they’re dystopian hellholes. Clearly the examples I cited are nice areas in those Burghs

But they are 'nice' areas if you are wealthy enough to comfortably pay housing costs and then still have money left over to afford all that London has to offer- including a travelcard into central London. I'd imagine if you were living in one room in Crouch End and paying through the nose for it, there wouldn't be many trips to theatres and restaurants going on.

And as I said,I’m simply disavowing the notion that the entire burgh haringay,Enfield,Edmonton are dumps
I don’t require the minutiae of property va,use by postcode
As much as it suits some to say it,not all of Ldn is a dump

I live in a city that gets a bad rep and people think it’s fierce,it’s mixed like all large cities and we all generally rub along ok

I live in Bath, have also lived in London, oxford, Canterbury, St. Albans, Windsor and Bristol. As I am originally from a Midlands mining town , these places have all seemed fantastic to me. In London I've lived in pretty nice areas, last one was Richmond/Twickenham. To be honest London is great if you can live in a decent area , which for me meant green and relatively safe, I did realise though we were paying a premium for a life we were not really having, it's not as if at the time we were always at galleries, theatre etc, we couldn't be arsed after working with keep going into west end. Anyway we ended up in bath (via Bristol) and I have to say it's great, we have everything we ourselves did in London, nice bars, cafes, decent shopping, lovely walks, theatres, comedy clubs etc and everything for me is 12 minutes walk into centre. We also rent a big house for around half what it's equivalent would have been, still go to London though approx once every 2 weeks to head office, so get that fix if we need it, don't really miss it though but I know I would if I went pure 'country' which is why my ideals are mid sized small university cities , bath, York, Norwich , Brighton etc.

I have lived in an “up and coming” area of London and an area of Manchester a lot of Mancunians cringe at when you mention it, I felt so unsafe in London and never really had any bother at all in the down and out end of Manchester I lived in...

I don’t think other cities quite have the menace that bits of London do..

yes parts of London can be quite menacing, last year i was walking down East St in the evening with my brother, who had never been there before, and he ran away screaming back to his car,,,,it was his Rolex he was scared for....

Really? I've lived in Colchester and Peterborough- I've felt less safe there than London at times.

For those by the way who say Bristol is lovely, I much preferred it as a visitor to living there. It took hours to get anywhere, has lousy public transport and driving is enough to test your sanity. I also found it really grubby, the constant smell of weed annoyed me and there were few areas I actually wanted to 'live' and my son developed drug issues in 6th form. I guess it all depends on what you want , we hopped it to Bath within 18 months and I have much preferred it to be honest.

yes that is true as well, esp Colchester or indeed any provincial town on a Saturday night.
The most horrendous place I have visited would have to be Basingstoke town centre on a summer evening, The streets were deserted and even McD had boarded up windows....

Def have felt more unsafe in provincial towns than in Ldn
Ime cities you need street smarts but cities aren’t as indiscriminately risky as towns
In Cities because they are so big you can’t immediately tell who local or not.whereas in towns it’s immediately obvious if your not from round ere, and difference feels more noticeable

If you move out of London what would you do for work? Lots of jobs are there. If your jobs need not be in London moving - and enjoying daily life - is easier.

If you went travelling you’d need a plan for DCs’ schools on return to the UK.

We moved out of London to home counties commuterville, mainly due to housing costs and DH craving more space. some things (housing, childcare and other services, pollution) are better where we are now, others (commute to work, shops, restaurants) much worse.