to ask if Milton Keynes/Bletchley is a nice place to live

[flawedflooring]

We've been considering a big move for a while and this option has recently come up. We have a young DC coming up to primary school age and are looking to move somewhere commutable to London, with plenty of green space and not obscenely expensive (isn't everyone!!).

Just wondering of people's experiences with it really / if there are particularly nice green areas etc to narrow down a few search areas for when we can hopefully one day as things open up again plan a proper visit.

I grew up in MK. It’s a great place to raise a family. Lots of green space, redways (cycle path network), huge choice of housing and so quick to get into London and also on main line to Manchester (I hr 30mins). Less than 30 mins on train. Desirable areas include Willen, Woughton on the Green, Loughton, Newport Pagnell and Stony Stratford. Happy Househunting! (I’d move back if I could! My parents still live there and my children love it)

If you look at a map of Milton Keynes you want areas where the roads are wiggly and avoid where they are straight. Bit of a generalisation as all areas all over the country will have good and bad bits but it’s what our first estate agent advised when we moved there. There is particularly good access to green space from the villages areas to the north or south (Newport pagnell, old Wolverton, Stony Stratford in the north and bow brick hill, Woburn sands and Aspley guise to the south) there is a lot of modern housing expansion at the moment towards M1 J13 which would give convenient access to villages such as cranfield and Marston moretaine which also has country park type walks and the like.

Cycling is great to get around, redways for leisure/family cycling and shorter commuting. I commute on bike in the summer on the road around 8 miles each way, (like to travel a bit fast for shared use pathways at school run time) but car is very much king still in MK which might be a consideration.

Thanks both, that's really really helpful and much appreciated, it gives us something to go on, it's narrowed down a few areas for us. Great to hear cycling is an option, I'm only a learner driver at the moment, so need an alternative to the car for the time being, which is obviously a big consideration as we don't want to be cut off. Thanks again!

@flawedflooring you can cycle most places in MK almost completely off road. Some routes are a bit indirect and will take a bit of exploring but vast amount of shared use space (redways) and occasionally nipping onto quiet inner estate roads (20-30mph limits not like the main roads). Just a consideration that these are shared with pedestrians so not always the quickest with giving way etc. Perfectly fine on a hybrid bike.

Google the MK grocery robots. It won’t help you with areas much but they are very cute!

I love MK. Look at Loughton, Great Holm, Two Mile Ash. Brand new secondary school being built, it will be finished next year, they will only take year 7 children every year until school is full. You can cycle to the station, fast trains into London are 35 mins, near the city, loads of activities for families, good luck

Oh and we haven’t any new coronvirus infections for about 2 weeks now.

If you don’t drive you need to be close to a local shopping district or bus stop because it’s often impossible to even walk a mile in most directions due to the national speed limit roads. Walking / biking routes are also, as a rule of thumb, double the distance of driving routes and may require walking up stairs to bridges etc.

If you want to be walking distance to the train station then Loughton and Shenley Church End are as far from the city as you should go.

Bletchley high road is nice. It might be worth looking there if the rest of MK freaks you out.

How much time have you spent there m?

No, God no....

Try Leighton Buzzard. It's slightly closer to London, shorter commute and a market town.

Milton Keynes can be expensive in the nice areas and not great in the not great areas.

Leighton buzzard is less than 15 mins by car and 7 mins by train from Milton Keynes.

I grew up in MK. It was on one of the older estates with 'straight lines' but it was OK. I do see what @lampygirl means though as a lot of the older estates near the centre, based on grids, are quite run down now. MK is perfect for young families as wherever you go you're always near woods or parks, there's a great cycling network and it's close to London and other nice places like Oxford and Cambridge. I used to live in West Bletchley and to be honest it's better if you live in MK itself, especially for schools. Olney and Stony Stratford are nice too.

We used to live in MK and we loved it, though it did take a bit of getting used to! There are loads of green places and playgrounds to explore, so it's great for children, and the town centre has pretty much everything you could want. It's a good lake to be a driver but not a bad place to be a pedestrian or cyclist though, IMO.

I live here, it's lovely :) there is a good balance of leisure activities to do and lots of green naturey spaces. It's expensive housing wise though. The green spaces is a huge bonus. Has some good schools, the prinamy school my DD is going to is in the top 2% of the country for reading and they've been awarded primary team of the year or something.

Bletchely has some really nice areas and some not so nice ones. I do not like Bletchely High Street but there are other similar older areas that have been incorporated into MK, like Stony Stratford and Wolverton.

There are also tons of new build developments going on. Northampton house prices are cheaper so if you want to work here lots of people commute from there.

Yes some of the estates are shoddy I grew up on one of the shoddy ones for a few years. There was supposed to be a regeneration programme for those estates but it's sadly been scrapped!

I grew up in the villages outside MK, which was nice. But you do have to drive everywhere which is a bit of a pain, especially when ferrying older children about.

Also I disagree slightly re the pedestrian system for if you don't drive - the redway system is really good and pretty much all bridges have stairs and a path going up them, same with the canal paths. It's really nice if you are in the quieter areas. Lots of the nice areas are quite close to not so nice areas though, there's not like a centralised or segmented "bad" area. There are "bad" estates scattered around. Don't know how that differs from other cities as I've only ever lived here

And yes the robots are adorable

It's mandatory to love our concrete cows though.

There are 42 parks in MK, they all join up, if you wanted, youcan walk all of them which is 25 miles

www.theparkstrust.com

Yes the parks and woods are fantastic. I live 2 mins from Campbell park and even between that and my house there is a large playing field and park.

There is also a lady who does a blog for parent of children in milton Keynes who reviews all the local parks and attractions, it might be useful to help gauge what areas you like?

I don't want to sound horrible but avoid Fishermead, Netherfield, Tinkers Bridge and the Lakes estate if you can

I'm in mk and agree with cloudy...avoid fishermead conniborrow tinkers netherfield and the lakes.
Tattenhoe furzton oxley kingsmead are nice areas and have good catchment schools

I'm in Northampton. I'd happily live in MK.

Hi all. We are looking to move in Milton Keynes but I’ve checked crime rate online and it’s not good number can somebody recommend if it’s nice place to live with family( young girls)

Is Portrush Close, Bletchley, Milton Keynes a nice area? My niece is looking to buy a house there. They don't have a car. Could that be an issue?