Black young families in Stevenage

[Daisy34689]

So, I’m considering moving to Stevenage with my 2 year old. I’m a young, black woman who is a primary school teacher. So, I was wondering what it’s like for black women working and raising young boys in that town.

I have not been to Stevenage for quite a few years now so hopefully things have changed, but I lived there as a late teen/young adult (early 2000s) and found it pretty awful and a lot of bigoted attitudes about. Also back then pretty much all of the young people were desperate to get out of what they felt was a dead end and depressing place.

Again this may be old news and I guess we're onto a new generation now so maybe attitudes and opportunities have changed, but if I were you I'd find out as much as you could or maybe spend some time there visiting regularly before moving.

My knowledge is also out of date, circa mid Noughties, but Stevenage is my personal Platonic ideal of "shithole".

Demographics say it's got slightly more diverse since then, but it's still fairly deprived and these things change slowly. I don't know where you are now, but Stevenage is a lot less diverse than London or the surrounding towns of size like Reading.

The descriptions given are still pretty accurate for present times.

I occasionally go shopping there, like many town centres it’s gone downhill recently.

Can’t help you any because I left in 1974 to the other side of the world but I often wander about it .

It's not known for being diverse.

Not somewhere I would chose.

Why are you looking at Stevenage in particular- is there anywhere else you are considering?

Lewis Hamilton grew up in Stevenage 🤷🏼‍♀️

I lived in Stevenage for a couple of years, leaving in 2020. It's actually my favourite place that I ever lived in! The town is super easy to get around, everything is accessible and within reasonable distance, the main roads/paths are nice and wide and clean, and there's lots of greenery.

I worked at the hospital and there were many races of people in and out, Stevenage to me seemed very multicultural. I can't speak from a black persons point of view, but many of my neighbours and colleagues were black so there is a decent sized community there

The town centre was kind of "dying" just before I moved away, some empty shops etc. But that didn't really affect me. I'd love to move back there one day but it's so expensive compared to up north, the only reason that I moved away was due to the high prices of being in the south

As of 2021 Stevenage reported being 3% Black. It's 83% white British, whiter than England as a whole.

I would say it's pretty multi cultural. Whereabouts are you looking to live within the town?

Not picking holes here but he actually grew up in Tewin, near Hertford. Which is a far more affluent area.

I don't go there a lot, maybe a couple of times a year, but agree it's not the nicest high street at least. Witnessed some awful racist behaviour towards a shopkeeper last time I was there (and I was the only one of the many who witnessed it to check he was okay afterwards!) and haven't been back since.

He went to Peartree Springs infant and juniors school in Stevenage and secondary school in Stevenage.

What had drawn you to Stevange particularly? In my opinion it's an absolute dive. The town centre is a vile place to be.