Moving to Norfolk or norwich

[GeraldineFamily]

Hi me and my partner are considering moving to Norfolk or Norwich for a better life for our 4 children. We are looking for advice on the best areas. My partner is a bus driver and I work as a housekeeper and we are currently in a rough town called Luton. We have yearly trips to Great Yarmouth which our children love but I have heard negative comments about living there. We are looking for somewhere that is quite but has shops, good schools and not far from the beach and hopefully employment.

Moved to Norwich from London 12 years ago and don't regret it. Great place for the DC to grow up and I walk pretty much everywhere. Some great schools even for DS who has autism but has managed to stay mainstream with support. Things to consider if looking at the villages around is public transport can be terrible, so if you don't have a car you're at the mercy of that. I recently looked into moving to a lovely village 6 miles away, but a bus every 2 hours that finishes at 6pm is not practical and my car isn't the most reliable.

We refer to Great Yarmouth as UKIP-On-Sea if that tells you anything about the place.

Describing Luton as rough is crap. Yes parts are dire but it is not a rough town. Some parts are lovely and I am not a lover of Luton.

Also moving to Norwich and Norfolk depends on, if you are white or not, are you?

I really like North Walsham, personally. It's not posh, not Yarmouth run down - just nice and normal with lots of nice normal families. Also some beautiful cottages and a very atmospheric old church in the town centre. Easy to get to either Norwich or the coast by public transport or car too. Only used nurseries there but they were great.

Hi everyone, great thread,
We are moving to Norwich as I work at UEA. We have found a house in Drayton which we absolutely love. Does anyone live in Drayton or know the area well? Is it a nice place to live? Any information is much appreciated. I have a 7 month old and 4 year old who is starting school soon .😀

Norfolk has terrible ratings as far as hospitals and healthcare are concerned.

There has always been a fair amount of racism (which you won't be aware of unless it impacts you) although hopefully this is improving.

Salaries aren't great and there are very few large companies to work for (pretty much just Aviva and NHS). House prices aren't as cheap as further north, so salaries don't stretch too far.

HOWEVER, Norfolk has some lovely places. If you want to be out of the City then near the Broads is nice. Cromer is good too.

Is racism really that bad in Norwich? We are Asian so should I be concerned? Xx

@sarasar I moved from London to Norfolk as a child (I'm white), I was shocked by the 'whiteness' of the area even then compared to my multicultural Primary school I had attended and not a huge amount has changed. Great Yarmouth itself has a large black Portuguese community and there is slightly more diversity near the hospitals and University but some areas are still very, very white.

@GeraldineFamily you want to be looking at Gorleston-on-Sea, close to Great Yarmouth but chalk and cheese. Gorleston is a large residential town, lots of shops, lots of schools, generally not on tourists radar. Good public transport links. Large sandy beach with a few shops and a little arcade, free parking beachside. It has 1/3 hospitals in Norfolk there too and I've never had a problem with any treatment I have personally experienced. Other nearby towns if you like that area are Hopton, Bradwell, Belton and Fritton. Gorleston you could live without a car the others you would want one s there public transport links are a bit sporadic. The worst crime I've experienced in my area was my neighbours moped was stolen and ditched in a field by some teenagers.

Negatives you hear are generally centred around poor schooling and unemployment. However, both these rates are hit by the fact the larger Great Yarmouth area is counted as deprived and has a higher than average level of SEND both students and parents. These SEND levels impact both the school results and the employment these individuals can access therefore leading to higher unemployment numbers. There have been one or two stabbings in GY town centre recently but I believe they are people known to each other / gang / county lines related and county lines are everywhere. Personally, I have never struggled to get a job in the area, and bright children can do very well. In fact the schools work extra hard to narrow the gap, provide cultural capital that many students miss and also to stretch the more able. The area has a good sixth form college and lots of students go off to university so its not all awful.

There are several threads running at the moment about people wanting to move to the area.

Norwich is the most multicultural part of Norfolk, very liberal and a fab city to live in @Sarasar

I lived there for years. I now live in a village 30 miles away and every child in the primary school is White British. In the high school there are probably 5 students out of 300 who aren't WB. It isn't a diverse county but Norwich is very different to the rest of the county.