Dilemma. Moving or not moving to Cambridge

[mmrmum]

Hi! I know this has been discussed before but I really need advice regarding moving to Cambridge. We are a family with 3 kids (7,5 and 1) who live very happily in SW London. We live in a very international area with an amazing community feel. The school where the kids attend to is outstanding and we feel incredibly supported by friends and the community in general. Now, my husband has been offered a good job in Cambridge which seems obvious that he has to accept. I really don’t want to leave behind what we have, but perhaps there is a place/school in Cambridge that offers something similar. Is there such a place? Any advice about areas will be greatly appreciated.

We are both European and always felt very included and welcomed here. Somehow I am concerned about not being able to feel at home and struggle to make friends.

For what it's worth as an indicator of attitudes, central Cambridge (Market ward) had the highest Remain vote in the UK at the referendum. The neighbouring wards also had high Remain majorities.

I live off Mill Road: the Petersfield part, which is the end nearest town, but used to live over the bridge in Romsey. It's a great place to live with a very strong sense of community. This coming weekend, for example, is the annual Mill Road Winter Fair, created and run entirely by local residents and businesses.

It's expensive, but if you're coming from London, it probably won't feel it.

Every single Cambridge ward voted to Remain. The range was 55-88% and the city-wide average was 74%. So no need to worry too much about getting the right area as far as Europeans and pro-Europeans are concerned! We’re all over Cambridge! —Just a shame about the rest of East Anglia.—

I'm involved in a Cohousing community, which is due to be completed June next year www.cambridge-k1.co.uk/

The area isn't one of the most desirable, but cheaper for that, and very well-located for access to the new train station.

We're a mixed-age, mixed-origin community, including lots of families with young children. I've got to know my future neighbours over a couple of years, and feel like we've already formed a community before moving in. We have regular events open to interested parties to attend, so you could come and meet us and see if its something that might suit you.

Wuffle
Looks great! Orchard Park isn’t too far from the river. And I reckon with the new train station the area is due a bit of slow but sure gentrification.

Hi there cambridge is very international anywhere in the centre and even some of the villages just outside too. If you are based in the western campus and want to live around there , there is a new university run primary school. My kids go/ went to a one of rh schools mentioned above and it is full of kids with uni parents, many coming directly from overseas either permanently or for 1-2 year sabbaticals as well as plenty of London transplants ( which I am too). The schools such as st Matthews, Newnham etc are all very popular but transient so spaces do turn up for primary. If you are city centre based for work or living st Matthews,Morley Newnham all great . Newnham and uni school would be nearest if your work is in the West cambridge site. Cambridge has a lot going on for such a small place and good shops etc and despite bad traffic, easier to manage than London but it will feel different .

I'm an ex-London Mum now based in Cambridge and sadly Cambridge disappoints in too many ways to list. In my view it is an incredibly over rated City which is split quite obviously between 'town and gown'. The 'gown' ensuring that everything from the best nursery provison to housing (they buy up some lovely houses!) is reserved for the University Staff or students. It feels dated, backwards, stuffy and boring vis a vis London. Being European will not be an issue here, being cosmopolitan will, ironically. If you don't have to, don't leave London, after my 3 are a little older (6, 4 and 1) we intend to move back. If you're unsure, rent before you sell ! 👍

Girton is nice with a nice community feel. Cambridge university primary school is on track for ofsted outstanding. It is a very international school too (most kids are bilingual). Some of the central Cambridge areas are nice too, but pricey. I love Cambridge. We moved away once but have moved back! I'd like to think u wouldn't regret the move!

I've lived in London and in Cambridge and much prefer Cambridge. But as Juggling8s suggests, it might be better to rent before committing. Also, depending on where your dh is working, some areas will be more accessible than others.

Cambridge isn't London, but it is - in my experience - friendly and welcoming. Plus for the size of the city, there's a lot going on. I live in a village West of Cambridge and really appreciate the fact that I can be in the city centre in the evening within 20 minutes but can also be in Kings Cross within an hour. I used to live off Mill Road in Cambridge when my dc were small and enjoyed it. I wouldn't particularly rate Cherry Hinton - not quite a village in its ow right, but not near enough to Cambridge to be part of the city vibe. I guess it's one of the few suburbs Cambridge has.

I've read that it takes 3 years in a new place before you feel settled in that community. So don't write Cambridge off within 6 months of moving here!

👋🏼 Emma

We recently did the same move and I have to say I miss London badly. London has much more of a community feel, there's endless things to do. If you're happy in London I'd say don't move- it definitely feels different in Cambridge.

We moved here from London (Walthamstow) just over a year ago and I still have to pinch myself sometimes, I am so much happier in Cambridge. Life is incredibly easy - It feels very friendly and international here, and unpretentious, without the extremes of wealth & abject poverty that make London a very uncomfortable and often angry place to be. I have found people here to be very open and warm and un-cliquey. We live in the Mill Rd area, and my house and un-overlooked garden with birds in it feels really secluded.

I should say though that I felt zero sense of community spirit in Walthamstow, just a cynical pretence of it to prop up house prices. So my experience of moving was not one of leaving a place I loved and felt I belonged to.

Things I enjoy about Cambridge: Apart from the city centre, it’s not constantly rammed with people. You get easy access to the countryside. I also like the mixture of ages and life stages you see out and about - it’s not like the monocultures you get in London where everyone you see in a particular neighbourhood is exactly 28-35 and you wonder what they’ve done with all the old people. It is incredibly easy to get places by foot or by bike. I feel I have gained 2 extra hours a day since moving here as I walk to work in 25 mins rather than struggling across London.

There are loads of social things the university puts on for new faculty & staff and their families, there are loads of local
hobby groups, bilingual parent and toddler groups, etc. It is a smaller place, there’s no doubt about that. But I have found it lovely. And I see more of my London friends now than I did when we lived all at opposite ends of the city. People like a day trip, and it’s such an easy journey.

It’s a hard decision for you to make if you’re leaving a place you really love, but I think Cambridge has a lot of the things you describe enjoying about where you currently are. Good luck!

you might be me a year ago! moved from london. we love it, live in mill road area which has a good community feel. It is very international here, and lively. Best bits of London are here on a smaller scale really (diversity, fun and action) -yet safe. being part of the uni also will provide you with good links and social life. de freville, chesterton, yes, also think about Newnham area which has a good school, is central and green. pm me if you need to talk.

also see this thread: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/local_cambridge/3100031-Moving-to-Cambridge-some-points-to-ponder

I'm afraid I think you would be mad to move here from London if you didn't have to, it's such a small town, with hardly anything to do, no interesting theatre at all - which astonished me - compared with the big northern cities, the theatre is flatly awful, just touring telly C-lister 'classic' productions and student versions of Broadway. The shops are crap, the Marks and Spencers must be the worst I've ever been to. (You should see the one on Eccleshall Road Sheffield, it's like the future!) The houses are crazily overpriced. The traffic is horrible AND the public transport basically non existent. I love our school and the other parents are incredibly nice.

& there's also N-O-T-H-I-N-G to do with kids. People are like 'Go to the Fitzwilliam museum, my kids love it!'. Ahem. My kids don't love museums with crockery and French impressionists.

@quail we live just south of Cambs (small posh market town) and loads of people on our local Facebook group say “oh go to Cambridge and go to the lovely museums”. My kids don’t do museums. They like running around. One thing I do miss around here is access to the real outdoors. Our nearest forest is Hatfield and it’s so boring. I like Cambridge but do find it a boring city.

My kids love London museums, they could spend five days solid at the @ in Bristol, they even liked the literally-stuck-in-the-1970s unfunded & penniless Doncaster museum, with its terrifying Stone Age man replicas and genuine ichthyosaur fossil. I’ve tried everywhere in Cambridge with them and apart from Wimpole, with its excellent set up of adventure playgrounds and hay bales (but last time we went, quite recently, I think five of the what do you call them, not rides, adventure-things, were broken and fenced off. It is perhaps a tenth as good as Chatsworth in that regard. I literally sound like Lady Catherine de Burgh) I have failed to find anything. The playgrounds in the parks are better everywhere else I’ve lived. There are prettyish wildernesses here and there but they have those everywhere in the country, and better. We have to live here for my partner’s job and because I’ve moved my kids so much and don’t want to move them again. But if you have a choice, there are better options.

Ah! I think people are being a bit harsh towards Cambridge! There is a lot to do here with kids! There's Milton Park with a junior parkrun every Sunday, feeding the ducks, canoeing, walking, a cafe etc... Ickswirth national trust, Anglesey abbey - with a fabulous kids area complete with den making, a cool treehouse thing, a restaurant, nice walks, a mill etc.., Houghton hall for boating and walking and picnics in summer, Wimpole hall with nice walks, a farm, tractor rides etc... and for indoor stuff, we have cinemas, bowling, loads of soft plays, an indoor climbing wall place, swimming pools with shoots and slides, loads of museums, an ice ring coming soon!, theatres, a spy mission place, duxford imperial war museum etc etc etc!!

And we r just a short train ride to London, a short car trip or train to Peterborough, near Bedford, and we r not even a million miles from Milton Keynes, Northampton or even Birmingham with a push!

We also have lovely people living here! Lovely schools, great kids, international vibe, two great universities, loads of countryside, little villages to live in which are a short hop to the city centre, I could go on and on!!

The only disadvantages I can see are that Cambridge is flat! and far from the beach! ... but we have Stanstead round the corner so even the beach and the mountains needn't be more that far away!

Cambridge is beautiful and of course there are wonderful people here as there are everywhere. You just have to find them! The kids school is a good place to start but it can be hard integrating if your kid doesn't start in reception when all the parents are making an effort to meet each other. After that it can be tough as it is a busy city with a divide between the educated and not and the career driven and not. Also, people assume schools are good here but take a close look as our catchment secondary school has shocking results (compared to the national average). Most primaries are good though.