To ask what part of North West England should I move to?

[CanIHaveChocolatePlease]

I hope it’s okay to put this in here, I couldn’t see a dedicated section for relocating!

I’m Irish and live in Ireland, but have wanted to live in England for a few years now for various reasons (things like more choices of shops, types of schools, towns etc, not as casual attitudes to rules etc), but I’ve come across better job/training opportunities in England than I can get in Ireland, which makes me want to live there even more now

I’d be targeting moving there late this year/early next year (yes I know I’m mad with the uncertainty of Brexit coming up but I feel that personally it’s the best choice for me!)

My preference has always been the North West region (no offence to any other areas, I like the idea of there being so many areas/towns/regions near each other and feel that the climate, lifestyle etc would suit me best)

I am hoping to do the school-based primary teaching
degree at Edge Hill uni and then work as a teaching assistant during the week, and then maybe a Saturday job in a shop to boost my funds more.

So I would like to be accessible to Ormskirk (where Edge Hill is), but also accessible to more non-student towns and cities, especially Manchester and Liverpool .

I would like to live in a decent sized town rather than in the city or in the rural countryside.

From looking up houses in the area, I think somewhere like the town of Leigh would suit me well, but I would just like people’s advice and opinions so that I wouldn’t regret my choice

I’m single so wouldn’t have to be worrying about having to bring family members over with me

Thanks in advance, I’d really appreciate people’s insights☺️

Why are you so fixated on buying a 3 bed room house as a single 21 year old?

Step 1
Get on a course. I agree with previous posters you are very unlikely to get on that Edge Hill course, sorry. You may not find it that easy to get a normal TA job anyway - they aren't easy to find and can have very experienced older people applying for them as they are a school hours job. And that course is aimed at very experienced TAs with a supportive head teacher. You've clearly missed starting a TA job this September and they don't have lots of midyear job opportunities generally.
You need to call the admissions office at have a chat, be realistic and start looking at other courses which are aimed at less experienced applicants like normal BEd teaching degrees.

Step 2.
Once you are on a course, rent a cheap, small one bed or studio flat near the uni. Or maybe try for the first year living in student housing. Some places (often private providers of housing) have tiny studio flats on offer so your own bathroom and basic cooking facilities but in a building of students and with communal lounges/study areas etc so you can meet people.
Live on whatever combination of student finance you qualify for, savings and part time work you can find for three years.

Step 3.
Graduate, find full time job as teacher. This might be in a different area to where you studied. Then, and only then, should you start thinking about three bed room houses and mortgages.

You do not want to be tied by a mortgage to an area far away from wherever you end up working. Selling houses is slow.

Getting a mortgage is not the be all and end all of life. Do not rush into it.

You sound, in the nicest possible way, like you've been a bit sheltered since you talk about your parents not wanting you to go away etc and not wanting to live with other people.

You don't have to have your life entirely mapped out and buy a "forever" three bedroom house at 21.

Also don't buy in Leigh. My dad is from there, it is cheaper for reason. Few jobs, depressed feeling, transport is not very good.

Avoid Leigh. It is a bit rough, has poor transport links and can be parochial. Chance of your kids getting bullied if they don't have the very distinctive accent. I have still heard "Tha guz" for "You go". Newton le Willows is a bit nicer and has great transport links but personally I would go for nearer to Ormskirk itself. Chester is nice but is also too far from Ormskirk IMO

Sorry just noticed you are younger without kids. You will be bored stiff in Leigh. and possibly Newton le Willows. Near Liverpool would be better for you. You won't want to go out late at night in Leigh even if you can find somewhere to go.

Ormskirk
Crosby
Southport
Stockton Heath
Chorley
Formby

I wouldn’t move as far as Chester or the Wirral, that’s a long old commute to Edge Hill.

Fellow Irish person living in the NW. 👋

The first thing to look at is the course finance.

We are UK based with a DC studying in Ireland. You cannot get any UK student finance loans to study in Ireland.

You need to check whether the same applies and if you can get Irish loans to study in the UK, or you need to fund it yourself. Currently you are looking at about £50k for a three year course in the UK.

Leigh is a shithole. An absolute proper shithole. St Helens is affordable and pleasant in some areas. Liverpool will probably be out of budget unless you want to live in a less affluent borough - it's pretty damn expensive here for 'the North'. Also the links from Liverpool to Edge Hill aren't that great, and to drive it daily would be a total ballache. Crosby would be good if you can find a reasonable rental.

That's right. I am not sure if it's different for Irish as there are sometimes different agreements, but EU students must live in UK for 3 years prior to be eligible for fee finance. 5 if you need a maintenance loan.

OP I am a little bit baffled by your want to do this tbh I think you might do better doing an SNA course in Ireland and staying home for a bit longer. Possibly work on getting your Irish and do teaching in Ireland! If you do it in the uk and then come back to Ireland you will need to. Register, get a teaching number, get your Irish qualification and a certificate of religious studies to get a job in Ireland. You are limiting yourself by training in the uk if you don’t intend on staying there forever. You basically have to start again when you return to Ireland. That route will cost you so much more money.

Hi again everyone! Sorry for not coming back to this sooner, I’ve been working a lot so haven’t been free

Thanks again for all of yer suggestions, I really appreciate them

I did get to look up most of the places that ye helpfully suggested, and although I might struggle to get somewhere affordable in some of the nicer places, there’ s lots of nice places mentioned that I will definitely look into

Some of the places that I think I’d consider/target and that I think would suit me the most would be Ormskirk, Pemberton, Burscough, Orrell, Winstanley, Parbold, Mawdsley, Eccleston, Appleby Bridge, Upholland, Shevington, Tarleton, Newton-le-Willows, Chester, Hulton, Rufford, Maghull, Formby, and Aintree , so if anyone has any honest opinions or advice about those places or any other nice places in the area, please let me know as I’d really appreciate it

Oh and two places I’ve come across when looking up the area have been Kirkby (between Liverpool and Ormskirk) and Darwen (near Preston), and seem to be relatively okay and affordable for housing and accessible to nearby areas (especially Kirkby, which is near enough to Liverpool, Ormskirk and Manchester), so if anyone has any thoughts or opinions (good or bad) on those places I’d also really appreciate it!

Thanks again for all of yer opinions, thoughts and advice- I really appreciate them (even if some of them aren’t what I want to hear)

You need to hire a car and have a drive around, see where you like. There are massive differences between a lot of those places. Do you want somewhere quiet? Town or countryside? Lots to do? Etc..

I have two friends living near me in NE Manchester who did a teaching degree while commuting to Edge Hill (40+ miles away), so you might not need to actually live that close?

Chester!

Some of the places you've listed are miles apart in prices seriously ... Parbold/Mawdsley are n

Ormskirk - full of students
Pemberton - rough

Burscough - nice place. Used to live here
Parbold - way out of your price range
Mawdsley - as above
Eccleston - meh
Appleby Bridge - it's Appley Bridge. Nice village. Great transport links
Upholland - nice enough.
Shevington - literally joins on to Appley Bridge. Again nice but further from the train station
Rufford - Nice. Rural. Not going to get much in your price range
Maghull - over priced for what it is. Wouldn't choose it
Formby - nice. Again probably struggle in budget
Aintree - Aintree village is nice. The rest not somewhere I'd choose to live

Kirkby not in a million years

• Parbold/Mawdsley are a world apart from Kirkby/Aintree

Seriously op don't buy yet. You're not even on the course and you're gonna seriously struggle on a TA wage if you can find a job that will support you to manage a 200k mortgage

Chester will be too expensive and it's not an easy commute to Edge Hill.

Lancashire is lovely. Ramsbottom is beautiful (ignore the funny name, it's a gorgeous town with a steam train, a market, indie shops and fabulous restaurants.)

Thanks again for all of yer advice, I really appreciate it!

To the people asking, it is a school based teaching degree so you mostly learn on the job rather than being based at uni, so I would only have to go to Edge Hill a few times a year, hence why I wouldn’t be too concerned on a daily basis about how near I am to Edge Hill itself

I’m assuming that there’d be a variety of schools in the area that you could work in, hence why I’d be happy to consider living and working in a nearby area, especially if I could target areas that are nice to live and/or work in, even if that meant lowering my expectations regarding to housing

I’m assuming that there’d be a variety of schools in the area that you could work in

As I mentioned previously this course is one designed for people already employed in a school who is willing to support them on this course. It's a massive ask for the school and not a single school I know will take you on and straight away support you through this course. You need to stop kidding yourself OP; this isn't a 'normal' uni course

Obviously I know it’s not a normal uni course, hence why it appeals to me much more than a normal course does

My aim would be to get a TA job in the next few months so that I would already be in a school and have experience before starting the degree

Leigh is very rough (born and bred nearby...) Atherton and Tyldesley are its nicer neighbors (although like all NW towns have areas to avoid). Atherton has a train station with trains to Manchester and Liverpool fairly regularly as well as a guided bus-way to Manchester. It also has buses to Bolton, Wigan and Leigh, so it is a good spot for transport.

Well good luck to you OP but I work in this exact area and think you're kidding yourself that you're going to walk into the job you want that will support you.

Warrington may suit you. we are bang in the middle of Manchester and Liverpool with excellent transport links to basically everywhere. Homes are reasonable compared to a lot of surrounding areas. I've just done my teacher training at Liverpool Hope as a mature student through Schools Direct and Warrington have two schools direct programmes that I know of.

My dad lived in Eccleston for a while I agree with the pp above - meh. And no transport links though it's good for the motorways.

Chester is lovely but too far away from Ormskirk.

Leaving aside the issues about the course, I would choose one of the nicer northern suburbs of Liverpool such as Crosby or even in the south of the city as Merseyrail is very good and goes to Ormskirk.

But if the course isn't right:

Have a look to see which schools in the area do on the job teacher training and will support you through a school-based PGCE. My son's school is part of a network that does this (different part of the country though).

You’ll have to drop the yer and ye OP!

Op you need a good dose of reality. You are not going to get on the course, neither can you afford to buy a £200k house.
You have completely misunderstood who the course is aimed at.
You seem to have no understanding of affordability when buying s house.
Have you even considered uni fees?
I am not saying this to be unkind , I would say the same to my own dc.

I don’t have an undergraduate degree so can’t do a a PGCE or SCITT, otherwise they’d obviously be the most sensible options as they’d be shorter and there’d be more choices, and I don’t really want to have to go to uni full time, hence why I’d be interested in the school based teaching one at Edge Hill

To all the people saying I couldn’t afford to be over there-I’d be willing to work as a teaching assistant during the week if I could and then work in retail/ children’s entertainer or something at weekends to boost my funds more (and for day to day things like a car, food etc) plus I have a decent amount of money already saved up from my current retail job that probably nearly would cover a 5-10% deposit for a mortgage (obviously depending on the value of the house)

Thanks again for all of your advice, I really appreciate it all