Make me feel better about staying in London please!

[Sudbury]

Partner and I are going to move out of our London flat as we want more space / garden for the toddler and baby.

I’m desperate to use this as a way to leave London and head for a smaller city, think: a Cathedral city so somewhere with culture, history and an identity - basically York or Norwich, but probably York. Somewhere we can get a slightly bigger cheaper house, have a calmer pace of life, make new friends, grow our own veg and not raise children who may be entitled London brats.

Reasons being I find London life annoying is I’ve been here 13 years and it’s increasingly fast paced, crowded, polluted and competitive. Don’t like being so far away from the countryside, living in the same city as friends but it taking an hour and a half to get to them because it’s so bloody big, no real sense of community, the general feeling of stress and busyness that seems to scent the London air.

Partner is not keen to leave, at least not now and gives very sensible reasons. We’d have to find new jobs / retrain as we both have London centric careers and while we do want to retrain now is probably too soon. We don’t have friends of family outside London in the places we’d like to move and raising young kids with no friends or family close by (which would be the case if we moved) is bloody hard. Other places may be less open / accepting of people who don’t 100% fit the straight, white, Christian mould.

I know in my heart that partner is right, and if they also wanted to leave I’d be voicing some of their reasons for staying. But I still get a horrible pang of longing whenever we leave London, or conversely view a house In London that costs double what a bigger house would cost elsewhere.

Help! Convince me that London is worth staying in and that the dream life doesn’t lie in York

What is a 'traditional white area'?

I think your thread has been derailed by the entitled kids thing, which I totally disagree with, unless you living in Notting hill next to a prep school or something. Plenty of parts of London are very mixed socially. BUT I wanted to leave London for a new area for a lot of the reasons you stated. More space, taking f-ing forever to get anywhere etc etc. We were stuck because I’m from US and DH’s family are all in London. Couldn’t figure out where to go as being far from family and friends felt like a bad idea with young dc. I grew up with very close friends and family and would not be happy having to start over and being far from everyone. DH also very close to his family with very close friends from uni.

We moved to where I’m from in the end. No regrets, my family are all 10 mins away, we’re in a west coast tech city with a lot going on but much less rushed than London. I would have stayed near DH family if this wasn’t an option.

"Other places may be less open / accepting of people who don’t 100% fit the straight, white, Christian mould."

You're right OP, the rest of the UK, including its cities, is terribly racist and bigoted. I'd stay put in London to be safe if I were you....🙄

There are other London areas that are more in the outskirts (zone 4/5) where you can get houses with bigger gardens and be closer to countryside.
Once your dc start school, you can make new friends pretty easily.

Hi OP. I am planning to leave London with my mixed-race family in the next couple of years, heading to a large seaside town on the south coast. I have some anxiety about this because at the minute my children are (ethnically) in a majority at their school and obviously outside of (some parts of) big cities that wouldn't be the case elsewhere. But our quality of life will be so much improved.

That said - I think I must be in a v different part of London from you, because 'entitled London brats' is def not something I'm getting away from. I'm getting away from an area with gentrified money flowing in but overwhelmingly, at my kids' age (the gentrifiers are all childfree yuppies) mostly grinding poverty, crap local facilities, and hovering grooming into gangs. You don't want 'entitled London brats', I don't want vulnerable London drug-runners! My heart breaks for so many of the local kids I see out and about.

This difference makes me think your current area may have some of the things I wish we could afford to be near: a genuinely mixed neighbourhood, good municipal facilities and outside spaces, good cultural provision (theatre, gallery, music centre?). I'm going to miss Turkish restaurants and afro-caribbean grocers and injera - all of which the town we're aiming for does also have, but they'll be a minority instead of ten a penny as they are here.

Have lived in London for 15 years and hope I always will. Things I love - many of which overlap with your list:

-the water taxi
-(the river generally)
-huge variety of cuisines
-plethora of Italian delicatessens (am half Italian)
-broad range of cultural events (we go to something at least once a fortnight and it's so easy to travel to/from)
-huge selection of vintage clothing stores
-the superb transport links - where we live, we can choose from bus/tube/overground/river taxi, all within 5/10 min walk)
-so many different bits of London to fit different moods - all a short tube ride away
-the City (I work there and my heart lifts every time I get off at Bank: the buildings! The history! The intrigue of what goes on behind those glorious (old and new) facades!)
-the history and grandeur of the architecture

Without sounding too much like a Hamilton song, I genuinely consider London to be one of the greatest cities in the world and feel lucky to (and to be able to) live here.

I grew up in Z1, totally agree with this.

A child specific thing I love about London is the sheer number of childcare options. Posters on here will talk about lack of school holiday childcare. Where we are in zone 3, there are 4 clubs within a mile that do 8-5 type hours and more further afield. Sports, science, cookery, dance, drama, it's all available.

I know some non London cities will have good options too but I really do like that I don't have to worry about whether I will be able to get something sorted

I live in London. Not sure which part you live be in but I have very different opinions.

And you lost me at ‘entitled London brats’.

York and Norwich are both really lovely. But they are a good two hours away from London. If you are still working in London the commute will not be fun.

Norwich has terrible public transport and it can be hard to find work there (depending on what you do of course!) as it is pretty cut off.

Greenwich as in the SE10 postcode might be out of your price range, but as well as what’s already been suggested I’d recommend you look more at what’s to offer in the Borough of Greenwich in the wider sense.

Charlton (SE7) is lovely and also has a villagey feel and a really big park. Close to blackheath standard as well.

Eltham/Eltham Park/Averyhill (SE9) also have oodles of green space, parks, ancient woodland and house prices there are certainly lower than SE10.

All have good transport, community and excellent access to really good divers restaurants and Ofsted rated good schools.

they could go to a more socially mixed school.

This really makes no sense to me. London schools are very socially mixed, extremely so. I’d say they are more socially mixed than schools in many other parts of the country -because London’s population is so diverse. Not just ethnicity, but also economically. My DC went to schools where some children were from large million-pound-plus houses, and some were in tiny council flats. This is entirely normal for London and it reflects the local housing makeup.

"Help! Convince me that London is worth staying in and that the dream life doesn’t lie in York"

Make local friends. Are your kids at school yet? Make parent friends. It's hard if you work full-time, but doable. Get a local hobby to make new friends. Schools do quiz nights etc.Get out there!

Do you have any garden? Tiny gardens can be lovely. Kids often prefer the park to playing in the garden. Or get on the list for an allotment. Also another way to make local friends.

Arrange to leave London for long weekends often. So you always have plans and the countryside to look forward to.

Explore the many many green spaces in London.

Enjoy what London has to offer, not just museums etc. but the fabulous markets and street life and things like Little Angels puppet theatre.

Not sure what else to suggest but I'm from London and wonder where you live?

Amen.