Bishops stortford vs Harpenden

[TENDTOprocrastinate]

We are planning to relocate from South London (think dodgy area) to Herts in the summer. At the moment we are trying to decide between the two above locations. We have two DC (7, 2) so good state schools are important. DH needs to get to Liverpool street v early but may need other london locations in the future. We have family in Harpenden. Our budget is £600k but would also consider initially renting. Im really struggling to decide between the two. BS is nearer to my folks and we can afford a v decent 4bed there. Harpenden is much more expensive so we may need to downsize from our current property. Harpenden is a bit of a 'dream' location for us. We visited BS twice and liked it.
If anyone has any views of these two locations I'd love to hear them. Both seem to be over subsribed for schools- is one better/worse than the other?

St Albans is also a consideration. I don't know much about it but spent the afternoon there once!

Check the secondary schools....Harpenden really excels in this respect, 3 outstanding schools with no academic selection - except for faith with one school.

I've checked the schools (ofsted/league tables/value added) and feel that the BS are slightly better overall. The best H school is the Catholic one. BS also has a single sex option. Both places have proposed new secondary schools.
I'm wondering what the v large new housing estate they are building in BS North will do to house prices.

I'm curious, how did you decide the best school in Harpenden is St Dominic's?

Harpenden is a great place to live and commute into London from. All the schools appear to be good and in demand. However, your budget won't get you much now. £600k for a house would limit you in size and location. i.e. probably not walkable to station and i'd suggest that you'd be struggling for space.

Chilli fudge- I suppose 'best' is s bit of a sweeping statement. I was just judging on this years GCSE results and the value added score.

Anyway decision made now. We have found a house and are moving to Bishops Stortford at Easter time. Can't wait. Just need to find a good school for dd1. Herts council state that we can apply four weeks before the moving date. They also update a list of school place vacancies roughly every 2 weeks- which is useful.

Hello ladies, I appreciate this post is now several months old but wondered if anyone could tell me a bit about Bishops Stortford, perhaps versus other towns like Harpenden, and even north Essex towns like Saffron Walden (although I think commute is just a bit too far?). We are thinking of relocating from a nice but crowded bit of SW London to one of these towns for a bit more space (ie home and garden) and countryside nearby ie getting out of London's pollution and overcrowding. Both my husband and I commute into Liverpool Street, and we have relatives in the Midlands and North Essex. So location wise these towns are up there. My husband wants to be close-ish to the sea too, so his fave on location alone is BS.
We have a 4, 3 and 1 year old (girl boy boy) so good primary schools are a massive pull. Seems all of BS primary schools are outstanding. Do you have to live on their doorstep to get in though? We've seen a house we like 0.2 miles from summercroft. Is that a good school? Seems to be outstanding. And what are regarded as the best schools or are they all good?
Are there good independent/state secondary schools too?
I knew the above includes a lot of questions - and I can do a lot of research online, which I have. But that only gets you so far- mums are by the far the best font of all knowledge I've ever known!
We'd be massively grateful for anything anyone wanted to share with us.
Many thanks in advance!