Ely versus St Ives

[Ang69]

Hi everyone, new to the site but was hoping for some info if possible. I will be moving down to Cambridgeshire in June with my DH and 4 kids. We are looking for a nice area that will be good for families with good schools and things to do for us all. We really like the look of both places but have been told that Ely is hard to travel around in as the roads are very often congested.

Does anyone have any info on any of the places and also how are the schools/nurseries? Our kids are 8, 6, 4 and 1. We are also looking at an area that will allow us to develop our business so it is important to have a reachable population. Our main office will be in Cambridge but will only have to go there once a week or so.

Many thanks in advance and any info would be really appreciated.

I moved to St Ives about 3 months ago after initially planning on moving to Ely from Australia. I have to say I absolutely love St Ives, we are so so happy here, great people, good schools, lots of green areas and playgrounds, easy access to Cambridge via the Guided Busway, and easy to get to Huntingdon or even Peterborough too. I have found so far that everyone is really lovely and friendly, loads of activities for kids and good facilities & shopping as far as I have found so far.
As for Ely our biggest problem there at the time was trying to find an affordable house that would also allow our cat, also school places for my 2 primary school aged kids were much harder to get and to be honest the secondary school for my eldest child I don't think it would have suited her. Ely does have the big Tesco and Sainsburys there which was a big plus to us, plus the rail link to Cambridge.
I don't know much about the Ely schools but all the primary schools here in St Ives have very good testimonials and all work closely with each other and also with St Ivo as all the primary schools feed into St Ivo.
We did also look at Huntingdon but I am so glad the girls here told me to consider St Ives too as I find it is perfect here for us and what we need.

Ely has a problem with secondary education, last I heard the City of Ely College wasn't doing well at all. Think the Ivo is probably a better school... Ely is very pretty but it's nearly in The Fens, which personally I find a little too remote, whereas St Ives is a bit nearer the rest of the country! Just my opinion though!

Glad you're settling into St Ives, SGF. Felt some responsibility after recommending it so it's good to hear you're happy.

I think both towns have a decent range of facilities, although there's probably more in Ely, it's a larger place. Plus it has the beautiful cathedral, and an actual hill, which is a rare and scenic commodity in this part of the world. We like going for days out there, but don't know anyone who actually lives there I'm afraid so don't know anything about the schools.

The Ivo school seems to have been having a real push to improve it's exam results recently, not that they were particularly bad before. Anecdotally, a greater percentage of the kids seem to be staying on for 6th form rather than going elsewhere, which must be a good sign.

Thank you everyone for your replies. We are probably erring on the side of St Ives as it probably would be better work wise. There seems to be good schools in both towns from the research I have done. Really nervous about moving down. We are in Glasgow just next door to the city center but we live in a lovely quiet area and the kids primary is great, just 20 pupils per class which I know will be difficult to match. On the plus side though it is easy to get to France as DH is from Paris so it will be cheaper to visit with 4 kids in tow!!

Thanks again and looking forward to hopefully getting to know you all in the future.

Hi, can you please updates us? Did you end up moving to Cambridge, where did you end up? I’m planing the same move this summer and I’m torn between st Ives and Ely… it can’t be remote … we need a good secondary school for our 13yrs… I’ve hear nice thinks about both areas but also heard lots of negatives about the surrounding of st ives like Huntington etc plus St Ivo school ofstead repost is not good ( requires improvement) so that’s a problem too …