Sevenoaks: Bat & Ball/Greatness: am I being risky?

[dgerrard]

Hi all,

Went and viewed a property with my wife on the weekend.

It's the first one we've seen that we've been at all interested in. Hour commute to her work, house is spotless, within our price range, overall area is really nice.

The street itself though, I felt a bit uncomfortable. It's in the Bat & Ball/Greatness area of Sevenoaks. I knew going in that it wasn't going to be an ultra-posh part of town, but I was a bit taken aback even then.

My wife says I'm overreacting, but we don't really know anyone in the area that I can check my misgivings with, and it would be a lot of money to spend if the area turned out to be rougher than we realise.

Any thoughts on this area? Up and coming, or steer clear? Thank you!

Hi dgerrard,
Did you get an answer to this question, as I'm looking at the area and feel the same but unsure if I'm over reacting?

Hi @michew. I’m outer Sevenoaks so perhaps can help.

Bat and Ball along with Dunton Green is the least desirable area of Sevenoaks if you ask residents. However, this really really is all relative! Sevenoaks is an expensive town and I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t a certain snobbishness in terms of where people live. Bat and Ball is considered less desirable as it’s on the edge of town and has a large council estate. The housing stock is a real jumble of Victorian, Edwardian and more modern housing. However to put things in perspective, it’s hardly rough! It has more of a mixed demographic than other Sevenoaks areas (other than Dunton Green) but plenty of relatively affluent people live there, just perhaps not the people buying up million off pound houses in central Sevenoaks.

When we moved to Sevenoaks nearly 7 years ago we looked at a great Edwardian house in Bat and Ball. We nearly offered on it. What put me off was the unlikelihood of being able to get my DD into one of the better local Primaries (she was Year 2 at the time) from there in the middle of term. The journey into London is also longer, there is the direct Thameslink service into London but it stops everywhere - the other alternative is to take the train into Sevenoaks then the fast train from there. Traffic in the morning into Sevenoaks itself flows through Bat and Ball and it’s real nightmare stop, start, stop stuff. Walking into Sevenoaks itself from Bat and Ball is a bit of a schlep.

On the school side, on a positive element it’s walkable to Weald and Trinity from Bat and Ball. Trinity is the best State Secondary in the direct area - it’s an oversubscribed faith school and only takes 50% of intake from non faith applications. I would have thought in Bat and Ball you’d be in catchment.

What we did it the end is buy in one of the neighbouring villages (Borough Green) which has its own train station with a direct line to London. While I certainly wouldn’t rule out Bat and Ball if I were you, I’d take a look at what your budget can get you in Seal, Platt, Ightham, Borough Green & Wrotham (Borough Green train station would be the closest for all 5). They are all more visually appealing than Bat and Ball. All have excellent Primaries. Platt, Borough Green, Ightham and Wrotham are all in catchment for the Maidstone grammars as well as the Tonbridge/Sevenoaks/Tunbridge Wells ones.

Happy for a PM if I can help any further.

I appreciate this thread was from a while back. Growing up in Sevenoaks, I once thought bat and ball was dodgy (when I was a very young teenager) but walking around as an adult it’s completely and utterly safe- I’ve even ventured down the “dodgiest” roads and back alleys and have never encountered anyone remotely dodgy- the gangs of kids you occasionally see seem to be more afraid of me than the other way around. Sevenoaks (including Bat & Ball) is one of the few places I would be comfortable walking around in any part past midnight.

The ASB died down a lot in COVID and has never returned to pre-COVID levels. The so-called dodgy areas of Sevenoaks are Greatness Lane, Hillingdon Rise, the area between Bat & Ball and Sainsbury’s and Dunton Green. I’ve been to all of these parts countless times over the years and they’re incredibly safe! Hilly Rise and Greatness Lane used to have some suspicious characters but again that’s died down considerably since COVID.

Sevenoaks is a sanctuary compared to Swanley. Swanley is a sanctuary compared to the likes of Thamesmead, Woolwich, Peckham, Brixton, Croydon, Tottenham etc. Everything is within the realms of relativity and you have to understand the wider perspective when evaluating crime.

Short to Medium term Sevenoaks will be the same incredibly spacious and rural area that it is today but in the long-term I could see it following a similar path to Orpington and parts of Bromley (and rightly so- there’s a lot of NIMBY’s around here and over a third of green belt land is used for intensive arable farming which isn’t even conducive to the environment- housing needs to be more accessible to the social renting population and these suburban areas is where it seems most feasible to start).