We're moving to Cambridge in the next few months and are looking for a family home. Having initially ignored Cambourne as I was fairly sure it wasn't for us, it's become harder to ignore how much house we can get for our money than it the more established villages we were otherwise looking at - and, actually, how much more there would seemingly be to do with small DC than if we ended up in a village which was chocolate box perfect but had a shop and nothing else. (We're pretty much priced out of the city itself.)
We looked round a house in Cambourne yesterday and loved the house itself, but are completely torn on whether the location would be fine or make us (me! DH not so fussed, but he'll be in the city centre every day for work, so get his fix of ancient architecture that way!) miserable. On the one hand it seems that, partly because it's so new, people have gone to a real effort to make it into a real community, and there does seem to be quite a bit going on. On the other hand I can't shake the feeling that it would be a bit like bringing my kids up on an army base or something, for no reason! But then again, DD starts school in September and we can't do anything about that until we have an address. So if we plump for a pretty village, crossing our fingers we'll get her into the local school, and then they don't have a place, she may end up having to go miles down the road, whereas in Cambourne there appear to be several good options (again, any views on that would be wonderful!), so it may be safer to go down that route...
So please - any thoughts? How isolated does it feel? How easy is it to get into town (bus timetable implies 50 mins - is that accurate?!)? How are the schools? Anyone love it/loathe it?
We need to make a decision pretty soon, but I don't want to rush into something we'll regret.