Sydney to England with 1YO and £1M budget

[Svani30]

Hello, throwing a bit of a wide net out but would love any opinions around great places to live in the South. A bit more about us and what we’re after:

• me and husband are mid-30s, in professional roles and will be working remotely when we move (though may have occasional meetings in London)
• we will have a 1YO at the time of move
• husband is English, I am Australian. We met whilst I was living in London and then lived together in Herts before moving to Sydney (where I’m from) where we’ve been for about 5 years
• husband has some family and friends scattered across England (mostly in Bucks) but we’re not tied to any one area due to family
• somewhere safe and with green space is our main priority
• other good to haves - close to transport, close to airport, area with young families, some amenities (a small market town is fine)
• we have a budget of £1M and would love at least a 3 bedroom with private outdoor area

Appreciate the above isn’t super specific but we deliberately want to keep an open mind about what’s best for our young family and where we might get the best value for our budget (whilst balancing safety/convenience/amenities). Have taken a look online at places like Amersham, Tring, Reigate, Harpenden, Radlett, Kingston, Windsor but really want to cast a wider net too so we weigh everything up. Open to areas in London too if they fit.

Thanks in advance

Hitchin would fit what you're looking for. Lots of things for young families to do, not too far from Luton airport, lots of green space, good schools and you'd get a 3 bed with a decent garden. You'd also have easy access to London.

If I was working remotely with just the occasional meeting in London, I’d move slightly further than commutable distance.

Slightly more inconvenient when you need to be in London, but more for your money / every less centred around London and everyone working there.

Have you looked at somewhere like Chichester or Winchester? You could even go beyond Oxford, there is a fast train. Or even Bath.

The issue with living <1h from central London is you pay a massive premium for it. So if you don’t actually need to be that close…

Good advice from previous posters!

I would say are you sure you want to return. We did and currently in the U.K. and leaving. It is just awful and everything feels broken, from healthcare, roads, schools and tax.

Firstly sorry if I’ve not used the reply feature properly (I’m new to Mumsnet!). Thank you for letting me know and sorry it’s not worked out. Our decision to move back was based mostly on work opportunities plus the feeling that more of England is livable on the budget we have (ie it’s quite hard for us to afford a house with garden etc in Sydney) and missing travel to Europe, but you raise some really important issues - especially healthcare, schools and tax. Healthcare I am actually quite happy with in Sydney (but we pretty much have to pay for most of it because of our income), taxes feel high in Australia but I guess it’s comparable to UK and in terms of school, it feels quite dependent on where you live. Would love your perspective though, as there is some flexibility to our decision (or the timing of it anyway). Are you leaving for Australia?

@Svani30
We were originally looking to return to NZ. However, DH job offers threw spanner’s in the works as he was then lined up for some really incredible opportunities, one being in the States. However, Aus is potentially now a destination as well and although getting desperate to leave, we have had to wait to work it out.
Our kids are in excellent schools, but crikey, for friends it is now nearly impossible. They are having to move geographically to be so close to the school to hit the criteria but if faith based it is still a nightmare. Apparently it will potentially start to ease due to demographics but that still doesn’t mean getting in and then ending up at a sink school miles away ( or pay for private with the additional 20% vat that Labour have just added on).

Heslthcare. 12 hour waits in A&E are fairly routine. If we have had to, we have driven miles and miles to neighbouring areas which can be less busy but if admission is needed you can lay on a trolley. The worst is elective appointments with specialists. For example, my daughter needed an appointment. Sent an appointment for 9 MONTHS later. We rang to actually change it as we were on holiday and told “ don’t bother as that is only a holding appointment and when the consultant reviews it, it is likely to go back further”. Therefore the only realistic option is either private health care (hopefully an option via employer as more are offering it) or you pay. We have opted to pay and this routine appointment and scans etc £2500.

Roads…dreadful. The potholes get filled more in summer but as soon as heavy rain or freezing conditions come, they just disintegrate. My small car has had to have two new nearside front wheels in the last 18 months due to nearside potholes that couldn’t be avoided. The council tried to say it wasn’t liable as it has recently inspected the last pothole and filled it. The fact it lasted 10 days didn’t seem to matter. We did get the money back after we sent a Letter before Claim which is the ore action protocol for court. We did on principle as we are so pissed off about vehicle damage. If I was staying I would be changing my car to an SUV as soon as many roads are like farm tracks.

HMRC tax. Don’t bother ringing. They don’t answer. They even tried to formalise this by shutting phone lines for months but an outcry stopped it. I wrote and they didn’t answer. After three months I went to my MP who got an answer in a week and I had a personal call from a special unit. I finally got back over £3k in overcharged tax.

i could go on. It just feels wearing living here. The public services are just broken but it isn’t all about money. They WFH is a joke. The times I or friends have had calls and it is obvious they are WFJ just from listening to the background. Friends in the public sector say they are sick of the demands from staff to WFH and performed takes a massive hit.

Tax….before the last election a person getting hitting £50k ( a friend of mine ) got taxed like this. 40% tax, 2% national insurance over the £50k threshold, 10%student loan repayment, 9.8% pension and 20% high income child benefit charge. A grand total of 82%. An absolute joke. The roe election giveaway raised the threshold for child benefit charge to £60k but in any event, Reeves the useless Chancellor is clawing it all back in frozen allowances.

So frankly the only reason I would come back is if you prefer the cold and wet climate which can be preferable to the Aussie heat at times and live near enough walking/ biking country such as Derbyshire or Yorkshire etc.

Dont go near inner cities especially London as any nice things you have will be stolen or you will be mugged in the street.

Sorry for the rant, but this is true lived experience of self and friends. Happy if you want to DM

If the above description hasn’t put you off…

Have a look at Marlow and Henley on Thames. You’d get a character 3 bed or slightly less character 4 bed for £1m. Both are on a (different) branch line to Paddington in 45/50 mins.

Benefits are 30 mins from Heathrow, smaller market towns with vibrant, upmarket high streets and plenty going on. Henley has a small hospital with a minor injuries clinic including an X-ray which is hugely helpful with kids for not having to go to a main A&E. Marlow is in Bucks which is a Grammar system and Henley in Oxfordshire which is not. Primaries are pretty good in both.

Where I am in one of the above, I can be in the fields in a 5 mins walk or at a ubiquitous Gail’s bakery in 10 mins walk which is a pretty good balance 😂

You need to decide how close in commute terms you want to be London. As PP said you may pay a premium that, if you don't need a certain commute, you don't need to.

In your shoes I would want to be within an hour of an airport with lots of cheap flights to Europe or near a Eurostar station! After being so geographically remote it's one of your bonuses of moving so I'd maximise it.

Marlow/Beaconsfield/St Albans/Berkhampsted/Tring/Ascot/Sonning and the rural areas around these market towns.

All beautiful with a fantastic standard of living and a 20-30 minute drive to Heathrow/Luton airports for European travel.

This ^
You get a lot more for your money going a bit further out.

I would def look a bit further out than the suburbs you mention if you only need to be in London occasionally

I am in Cheshire and the trains are expensive but fast enough for day trips

i’d look at the south coast personally

I would also think carefully about whether you want to return. There are some wonderful things about living in the UK but at the moment there are a lot of problems. The 14 years of Conservative government with reduced funding for public services is having massive consequences now. Councils are literally bankrupt or on their knees.
The NHS is broken.
The education system is very challenging and varies considerably depending on where you live.

Which part of London do you need to get to?

For St Pancras, go to Herts - Harpenden, St Albans, area

For Charing Cross - Tunbridge Wells

Cambridge may be another option also.

(and it’s not all doom and gloom here)

I’d look Bath/Bristol way - both great cities in their own way, amazing Somerset countryside on the doorstep and sub 1hr30 into Paddington on the train (just over an hour if you get the express service from Bristol Parkway).

There are a lot of uninspiring, miserable commuter towns closer to London where you get a lot less house for your money - we’re currently looking around Berks/Surrey and we’d be going further West if it wasn’t for the fact I’m in London 3 days a week.

We moved to East Sussex.
Beautiful countryside, coastline, trains to London ( fine for an occasional commute).
Need to be a bit picky re catchment areas though, but that's the same everywhere and you have the advantage of being able to do that.
However, it is not cosmopolitan or diverse if that is important to you (again common in leafy semi rural england).

We moved back from NZ and it took us a couple of years to get over it, and it’s still a huge regret ….

York. Two hours on the train and you get much more for your money.

It's gorgeous. Yorkshire is a beautiful place to be. There are good schools where staff care and make a difference, and kids aren't feral as everyone seems to think all teens are. Things can be expensive yes but you have 1m for a home so you're probably not going to feel it anywhere near as much.

Bucks is a good starting point. Marlow?

A PP has already mentioned Harpenden. I'd agree 👍🏻

I'd also agree with all the PPs who are saying 'maybe think again' about coming back. The NHS is screwed...you'll never get a GP appointment in under three weeks (so you will need your crystal ball to work out exactly when you're going to become ill!). NHS waiting lists are utterly ridiculous, and our education system is broken beyond repair (I know this first hand as a primary school Deputy of 30 years!)

The grass is not always greener.

Reading? 30 mins or less by train to London, close to Heathrow, very close to beautiful countryside, more affordable than neighbouring counties.

We left Sydney in 2019 after a few years as it wasn't for us. You sound similar to us; English husband, I'm Australian, met in London and did a couple of years in Sydney where his career tanked, so we came back.

Happy to talk about the specifics of our family setup in PM if you would like.

Poster upthread makes some good points; the U.K. isn't as nice as Australia by any stretch. The rubbish everywhere is depressing, as is antisocial behaviour. We are lucky that we have no significant health health issues, but we do have excellent health insurance which gives me peace of mind. We've only had to access A&E a few times in the last few years and it's actually always been much better than I expected.

We have a life in London we just couldn't have afforded in Sydney. My kids play with the neighbours kids out on our road on sunny days. We can be in the West End in 30 minutes, and we have beautiful woodlands a few roads behind our house where we can walk for hours. School trips are the Tower of London and to see concerts at Royal Festival Hall.

I would also second those who have suggested you think long and hard about whether a return here would be good for your family long-term. The country's services are broken and it is arguably more divided as a nation than it has ever been before.

Affording a house with a garden is nice, but it's not the be all and end all. What is more important long-term is the friends you and the children will be able to make; access to quality healthcare (you won't get that here), childcare, primary and secondary education (again, you won't get that here); university/further education opportunities and costs; opportunities (extremely limited) etc.

If you both primarily work from home, would it be possible to live elsewhere in Europe and just arrange London meetings all in one day or over 1-2 days? (I know a few people who've done that for decades and it has worked successfully for them.)

I’m not going to heap more doom on life in the UK currently as you get the picture. There are, however, still loads of good things about Britain. I would focus on what you like doing and plan around that. Do you want to be outdoors, in the countryside? Going on trips to Europe? Going to museums and theatre?

You definitely don’t need to be near London if you’re going to be working remotely. I grew up in St Albans and Harpenden and I’d only live there if both of you need to be in London everyday. They are some of the most expensive places in the country to buy houses and are pretty meh, even St Albans now sadly.

If you think the weather will be a big adjustment then I’d look at the south coast, close to either Gatwick or Southampton airports so you get to Europe - this is the key advantage of Britain over Oz so you may as well make it easy to do, accepting that nothing is easy with a one year old. The downside of the south is that it’s a long drive to the rest of the UK if you want to explore domestically.

If you like culture/music/sport and countryside and aren’t bothered by rain, then I’d look at Cheshire. I spend one day a week in London from here. The train is expensive and Euston is horrendous but on the plus side Manchester and Liverpool ars brilliant for sport, theatre, especially good for music. The Peak District is right here and the Lakes and North Wales are less than 2 hours away. Look at Wilmslow- it’s as expensive as it gets in Cheshire but you’ll still get a 5 bed house walking distance to the station for £1m. You can be in London in under 2 hours, Manchester in 20 mins and Manchester Airport is 10 mins away (which has direct flights to Dubai so you won’t need to go to London to fly home). The airport is important- as much as I love living here and would never live in the south again, the winter sucks and you need access to sunshine.

Alternatively, I have a friend who lives in North Berwick and does one day a week in London by using the sleeper service each way. It wouldn’t be for me that travel, but the point I’m making is that you don’t need to be tied to commuter towns close to London.

Think about community and longevity, putting down roots. I’d look for older established market towns with loads going on, culture, rail links and of course great schools and local facilities including a hospital.

I don’t recognise the ultra-bleak picture people are painting of the UK but it’s subjective depending on personal experience. The government is prioritising growth and efficiency which is good but it’ll take a few years.

As with any country you can’t just be a passive rider along the way, you have to lean into it (eg being actively part of a local community which makes for nicer places to live)