Best places to raise children

[WendyWeber]

BBC report on Reader's Digest (ahem) poll

We come 9th!

I used to live in Number 2 but pre children- lol!

You fruit-loop!

Did you see this bit:

Omg Reading was last! I grew up in Reading.

Probably explains a lot actually!!

"A low risk of flooding was rated as the sixth most important factor by parents.

"

rofl

odd poll. was it voted by readers of said digest (are there actually any?)?
Wouldn't have thought Oxford or Reading would be at the bottom,very odd.

Actually it's probably more a reflection of where Reader's Digest types live (safe and boring )

ooh, i know, they are trying to put off noisy families from moving into their peaceful culdesacs.

But if it was a poll of Readers Digest readers I think it might indicate that there are more of them in the 'best' areas. Which I would consider a tad worrying...

x-posted wendyweber.

Has anyone found the full list yet? I can't find it.

Oxford 10th worst!! But there must be a VAST difference between some parts of Oxford and others. We have friends in North Oxford and their children have a lovely life. Even their state school is OK, which is one of the things Oxford is mentioned as being bad for.

No sorry, rubbish. There are loads of beautiful places to live, that aren't even there - everyone knows that parts of Hampshire and Kent are fab - where are they on the list ?
(Not that I live in Hampshire or Kent, you know )

Poor Reading! Used to live there and, sure, it has its less-gorgeous bits (but where doesn't?), but seems to me a pretty good place to raise kids. Houses are expensive, but it has some of the best state schools in the country (selective, admittedly, but performing right up there with the top private schools), great travel connections (aka 'easy to get out of'!), lovely countryside nearby, a good hospital (and I know the antenatal ward better than most!), a university, 30 minutes by train to London... Stupid survey, imvho.

(Where I live now is even nicer, though... but I'm not telling you where it is, lest you all move here en masse! )

This actually is a great place for families - excellent schools (primary and secondary), very friendly community, high employment, hardly any crime and a very good local health service - OTOH the weather is crap, it's a bloody long way to the nearest hospital, it takes at least 30 mins to get on a motorway, and all day just to get down to the ferry ports, never mind France.

(Also there is a huge cement factory just up the road so everything is permanently coated in dust except when it's peeing down, but then it usually is so that's OK )

This Readers' Digest survey is just an upmarket version of the "Crap Towns Book", isn't it? Or that smary thing Phil and Kirstie did about the "Best" and "Worst" places to buy property.

Trying to find the full list, but the RD site just links to a load of bloody special offers.

WEST LOTHIAN???

I wonder if Cod has seen that the Forest of Dean is number 3!

Forest of Dean 3 ? My brother lives in F of D. I too have lived there. Yes it has some great point. But no 3 ? I don't think so. Cod or no Cod

Didn't EMF come from the Forest of Dean?... "Epsom Mad Funkers" as they tried to convince some journalists they were called. They looked like chavs before the word was invented.

Does cod come from Forest of Dean? She doesn't live there now.

East Dunbartonshire? Presumably they focused on only posh areas like Milngavie and Bearsden, both of which are so up themselves I wouldn't consider moving there! Actually I come from the rather less posh part, but next to another posh part called Lenzie, in a town once known as the bible belt of Glasgow! Not now that is for sure.

And I now live in West Lothian, again, they must have visited Linlithgow and that was it! There is only one decent high school in the entire county.

Weird, very weird. There is a high English middle-class population in these towns, am sad to say as a Scot that this might have some baring. But don't all run up here thinking the whole place is lovely!

The full results are now downloadable from

here

Find it odd that Nos 1 and 2 are both on the outskirts of Glasgow, which has to be one of the most maligned cities in the country by the media's standards.

I was brought up in No 2 on the list - Fimbo, would you go back? - and I'm stunned. I suppose the only thing going for it, is its absolute mediocrity and the fact most of it is about 800 feet above sea level in these global warming, rising sea level times....and maybe why remoteness from flooding (!!) came into this poll? Weird. It's not exactly a cultural capital either unless you count Giffnock Library.

Uttlesford is 10th. That doesn't make sense.
I thought every one who lived there was jittery about the 'next Heathrow' plans for Stansted.

Woo-ooh! We made the top 50 at least!