St Albans - areas to rent

[jubjubbird]

We're hoping to move to St Albans in the next year and would like to live in the catchment areas for either SS Alban & Stephen or St Adrians primary schools, but also need to be walking distance to main train station. We'll have to rent for a couple of years before buying, so we don't have to get the road perfectly right first time, but need to be generally east or south...

I wonder if anyone could tell me about these areas please?

Maynard Drive/Abbots Ave/Watling View/Tavistock Crescent/Holyrood Crescent? Is this all part of the avoid-worthy Cottonmill Estate I keep reading about??

Those little streets around Old London Road (i.e. between London Road and Holywell Hill)?

Camp Road?

Thanks so much for your help!

Avoid the camp and cottonmill if you can. Fleetville is good. Hope you find somewhere that suits.

Fleetville (Hatfield Rd area between the cemetary and Ashley Rd ish) is great, full of young families and the vintage emporium there is fab! I don't know if it would be in the catchment areas for those schools though...I'm starting to think cottonmill doesn't live up to it's bad rep, but many would tell you to avoid most of the roads you mention. IMO Abbots Ave is nice. Camproad is very long, the better houses tend to be at the Hatfield Rd end.
The roads around Ldn Rd & Holywell Hill are very des res (round Pageant Rd etc) and pricey.
TBH St Albans is hardly gang-land anywhere.
Good luck, I grew up in Snorbs and love it!

I would say, of those streets you mention, have a look at the ones off Old London Road :).

St Albans is like any other English town in that the nice roads are often cheek by jowl with the less nice ones. To be honest you need to contact all the big local estate agents, line up a load of viewings and just come and have a look.

And beware, this town is cut-throat when it comes to finding a decent rental - particularly family-sized 3 or 4 bed places Anything good goes really quickly, so you or your DH may have to be prepared to jump on a train after work or at short notice. Don't wait until Saturday when you can come together - if it's nice it will be gone by then.

P.S. If you have specific streets or areas in mind, come and walk around them and get to know them. Everything is very compact so it wouldn't be hard to do and only you know what you're looking for.

Thanks, everyone, you're v helpful!

It's already frustrating how quickly rentals are going... we still haven't completed our house sale so we can't commit to anything yet - soooo annoying as there are two really nice houses available in Jan. They'll be gone by the time we've completed, but we really need to move by Feb... it's an incredibly frustrating juggling act!