Moving to south wales

[CookingMama99]

Hi all, partner and I are currently in west midlands and looking to move to south wales. He is carer for his 3 children (I am step mum) but we are trying for a baby of our own. I work part time but was planning to get a mortgage on house in south wales and move in when i start maternity leave. Partner has council property and was going to ask council to move him and kids to south wales to be close to me and baby. Cant all live together as cant afford bigger house mortgage and one child is disabled.
We want to be moved by next summer when school year ends.

Advice on cheap but not too rough areas to look into moving to?
And any tips for how to go about doing this through council?

This is very unlikely to work, councils simply don't have the space to move people who are already adequately housed. Priority will be given to people who need to move for safety reasons - families fleeing DV for example. Why does it need to be South Wales? Why can't you get a property nearer to him?

It sounds like it would be a lot of upheaval for your partner's children, too - you risk causing some serious resentment towards you and their new sibling before it's even born, which I think would be a huge error.

Hi had to delete previous account to try and get rid of other post because of the judgmental comments. My partner is not housed properly housed. Youngest child is disabled and extremely overcrowded flat. Dangerous area. We are fleeing due to stalking and harassment by a family member , I can't go into detail. They have kidnapped the children before from school. All of the kids are begging to move and so happy and excited about it. We have family in South wales. The only problem is my step daughter who it was actually her idea to move in the first place. She hates her school and begged us to move now she's had a change of heart , she has done this before. I can't believe the amount of judgement received on last post when all I wanted was advice on how to make her happy , I try my absolute best , I am moving my whole life for these kids I've already done it once and doing it now for their safety and for a better life, and bigger house for our disabled child , and new baby.
Just wanted some tips from I thought kind helpful people on here. Won't be posting ever again was a mistake

Im so sorry you have received so many negative comments. Have you tried speaking to your partners housing office/neighbourhood officer to see if they can advise re a possible swap.

The only risk you may face is that as you are moving from another area you may be only be offered some of the worser areas were empty housing is available.

i work in South Wales for a council housing department and can safely say that there are some lovely areas that are in high demand and some absolutely appalling areas as well.

If you are able to get an offer, maybe then other mumsnetters will be able to advise on those areas.

@Cookingmama999 you've just added a LOT of relevant information that was missing from your other post - had you included the background you would not have received such harsh replies.

If you're in danger you need to contact the police, SS and housing. Get all incidents logged, get safeguarding at school and SS involved, and they may be able to put pressure on housing to move you. Although, I think that will depend on who the harassment is coming from. If it's the children's mother, it may be much more difficult because she presumably has rights RE contact with her kids.

Why should I have to give so many personal details when all I wanted was a bit of support and advice instead I got a load of judgment. I shouldn't have to answer to anyone the reasons I'm moving I just wanted to do right by my daughter and get help for her that was obvious in the post it's the only questions I asked. Don't worry I will never make the mistake of asking for help from this forum again. It was a risk anyway in case our abuser found it. Another bloody reason why I didn't give backstory.!!!

Thanks so much for your help I appreciate it I'll look into this for sure

Can we ask what kind of disability?
A lot of places in the valleys are very hard to navigate if the child is a wheelchair user- particularly self propelled. And some would very hard if the child had difficulties walking, there are a lot of steep hills and a ton of sloping pavements

@Sandysandwich he has asperges and autism. He is completely fine to walk, we have to keep a tight grip on him as he will escape if not held close but hills shouldnt be a problem. Partner and I both drive. Reason we will live separately is because I can only afford mortgage with 1 or 2 bedrooms and we need a separate house as a safe haven to keep kids separate from their brother as he is very destructive, breaks and ruins all of their things, does not allow them to sleep at night. We are all exhausted.

Some of the places in the valleys are pretty affordable, particularly the rhondda valleys,
I don't know anything about the council situation but Treorchy and Tonypandy are quite decent for cost effective housing
Mountain Ash is alright too. If the child is not in mainstream do you know if you need to be near to any particular schools?

Starting at the sensible end of things - where is your family based and how far away from them would you need to be?

In terms of housing accessibility, it's pretty tight even in South Wales. With a family connection in a local authority you could make an outright application for housing. Forget the cities. Newport, Cardiff and Swansea all have massively oversubscribed housing wait lists - the only movement on these lists are in the less desirable areas. Don't get me wrong, great people live in these areas too...but there's a reason why there's decent turnover for social housing in them.

As you get further away from the cities and good transport links the house prices drop considerably and your chances of getting social housing increase too. In the area I'm from you can still buy a decent 3 bed house with a garden for less than £100k.

Start with the local authority areas and see what their social housing details are like. Outside of the cities you have Caerphilly, Rhondda Cynon Taff, Neath Port Talbot and Bridgend. Once you have a local authority you can begin to look at localities and there are plenty of Welsh MN folk who can help you avoid some of the trickier areas once you have a shortlist.