Gossip on Edinburgh commuter locations

[ImposterJen]

My OH has just got a job at the University of Edinburgh and we’re relocating from England. I’m after gossip and sociological insight into who lives in different areas around Edinburgh.

About us: we’re an academic and disability activist, middle middle class (have lived in working class and posher-than-us areas previously), a bit arty, don’t like bigotry, but can also get annoyed by extreme fluffiness or community inclusion pressures (for health reasons I don’t want to need to do lots of community activities to fit in). Main activity would be dog walks. We like period properties with character and a view in a quiet location, but we’re not millionaires.

Do any areas spring to mind for us to feel right at home?

We’ll probably buy somewhere outside of Edinburgh (up to 45min commute) but we’re also interested in insight into Edinburgh neighbourhoods.

Places we think we’d like in preference order: Dunbar, Musselburgh, Aberdour, other East Lothian locations, other commutable Fife locations, Rosewell

Would we fit in in these places?

We’re intrigued that we can get more house for our money in places like Bo’ness, Bathgate, Inverkeithing. Why? Please be honest and specific.

BTW I have to confess I’m an imposter on this site - for health reasons I haven’t been able to have children. However, I’ve noticed that MumsNet is the best place online for getting honest feedback from women in my age group. This also means we can ignore school catchment issues - where would you move if you didn’t have to think about schools?

espc.com/property/29-relugas-place-the-grange-eh9-2py/35801237?sid=888648
Don’t get much got your money in this area but very “nice” and close to newington for bars etc.

And I think this could be a perfect compromise although portobello can be a little rough at night with kids hanging around. But that’s everywhere now
espc.com/property/30-adelphi-place-portobello-edinburgh-eh15-1bg/35802112?sid=344570

Last one from me. This is adorable. You would have a 20 minute drive for the train into Edinburgh. Lovely wee village. Rural East Lothian.
espc.com/property/the-cooperage-garvald/35814975?sid=890858

My adult Ds went to Amsterdam - he was amazed - 'there were no old people' ,
he lives in Edinburgh which is definitely all ages in the centre. Something, being old, I'd never noticed myself. Maybe consider Edinburgh itself.

@Calledyoulastnightfromglasgow we’re definitely dog walk and nice pub Sunday lunch, no longer late evening bar or club people.

Bit exhausted today. I’ll write update re viewings and impressions of areas soon.

Try Pathhead

I lived in West Lothian not Linlithgow but it’s not great I wouldn’t live there again or in Edinburgh. Have you considered towards Stirling/dunblane/bridge of Allan my partner drives to edinburgh daily and there are regular trains.

I used to work at University and DH still works in centre of Edinburgh. We lived in Joppa for 10 years and then moved out to West Lothian. I loved Porty and Joppa but the commute into town was a bit of a horror - bus took for ever. There is the train station at Brunstane. But its arty and laid back and a bit Stockbridge on Sea now- commuting may have improved. There were loads of University people living there. The other advantage is you can be out into East Lothian countryside in 15 minutes whilst still being able to get into Edinburgh and more importantly home at night.
That said I prefer West Lothian for the people. I love Bo'ness, the Hippodrome cinema is a fabulous place, but I wouldn't want to live there and commute into town. You'd need to drive into Linlithgow, try and get parked and then train which is often full. Linlithgow is nice and in East Lothian Dunbar is lovely.
Anything involving going anywhere near the bypass or the forth crossings is a no from me.

TLDR summary: we still feel like we’re a way off from narrowing down what we actually want enough to buy a house, I suspect we’re going to be renting longer than we’d intended (we’re in an Airbnb Jan-Mar intending to put in an offer early on and complete in that time). The location winner was Linlithgow in West Lothian.

My partner didn’t like the feel and extra commute for Bo’ness. The gorgeous house didn’t overcome this. What does it signify about a household if people display Union Jack flags in their garden (beyond not pro independence)? My partner noticed a few in Bo’ness and she wondered if it has similar associations to the St George flags in England (when there isn’t a big sports match)? Those are the types of areas we’d avoid here.

She did like the main roads area of Duddingston but that might be too busy for me (side roads seemed a bit cookie cutter housing to her but that might be something to compromise). The owner didn’t know his neighbours at all. Is this normal for Edinburgh? On our current street we socialise with our neighbours and offer each other significant support (eg dog walks, food when sick, lifts to hospital).

She seemed much more enthusiastic about Linlithgow. She liked that it felt like a place that had its own identity and history. A destination in itself. We didn’t want to buy the specific house. The estate agent was sceptical we can afford what we want in Linlithgow.

We’ve decided we have a preference for places that happen to be commutable but we would choose to live there anyway (eg if we were teachers who could go anywhere there’s a primary school). We’ll probably rule out places which are simply dormitory towns to Edinburgh. Which ones does that cross off the list?!

The Blackridge house was somewhere she’d buy as a specific house, it would feel like living in the middle of the countryside but with a walkable train station. But deciding on a country feel is another decision to make. We get more for our money but I’m not sure re the topic of this thread. I think we might seem weird to people in Blackridge although I think they’d probably be friendly (a neighbour chatted to my partner). There’s nothing really there.

BTW it’s not worth the effort to send us specific houses. An exception would be if you happen to know of houses which are coming on the market but aren’t advertised yet. I have mobility and care needs and it’s tricky for us to work out which houses are possible layout wise (not even as simple as just a bungalow). I do get a load of ESPC, rightmove, zoopla houses emailed and our difficulty is narrowing down the areas we want to live in, which is what local insight on here is really useful for.

An example of a style of house which could work well for us is the traditional bungalow layout (wide hall, 2 downstairs bedrooms, 2 receptions, downstairs kitchen and bath with a couple of dormer rooms upstairs). Other styles of house can work too.

We also have difficult decisions around care related stuff and the impact of living in more remote locations.

We don’t go back up until we move up permanently at the beginning of January now, so I should probably switch off from searching (as much as I can) and concentrate on organising moving and Christmas stuff. We will definitely check out East Lothian before making a decision.

@roundturnandtwohalfhitches how are the people different between West and East Lothian? Is this the same in Linlithgow and Dunbar? (our current favourites, if a suitable house comes up)

I would choose Musselburgh from your list. Portobello is nice if you like fancy places.
(Am also a gay)

East East Lothian is agriculture. Lots of mining around prestonpans and Tranent. Parts of that area still feel a little depressed.

West Lothian has a big mining past too and I would argue it’s more industrial and less pretty but there are some nice villages and Linlithgow is lovely

In terms of people, they are both nice commuter towns with a mixed population. Personally if I was heading west I could go for Bridge of Allan but it’s a longer commute

Dunbar is really quite bitter cold, even in summer. FYI. W Lothian cloudier and rainier. Milder.

Just catching up with your thread OP. I’m in Linlithgow so feel free to DM me any questions.

Trains are fine now in terms of getting a seat - once you know the best carriages to go for!

That said, not a lot of bungalows here. Good luck with wherever you choose.

Has your partner visited Liberton as suggested upthread? Easy to get into town by bus or car, near the university especially for maths/sciences, and close to Blackford Hill and the Pentlands for dog walks with a fair few relatively modern homes which may be more adaptable than in other areas of Edinburgh without being soulless newbuilds. In general, south Edinburgh is well served for medical care as there's the Royal and places with specialised clinics like the Astley Ainslie or the Lauriston Building.

Musselburgh if you like the sea, or just to be in easy reach of it then Duddingston. Close to Porty and a nice area itself not a million miles from the university.

Tbh I think crossing off dormitory towns takes out a lot of East Lothian, especially places like Longniddry, though I've not spent a huge amount of time there in about the past five years. Even a lot of the kids there go to (private) school in Edinburgh as they get the train or their schools put on buses. I get the impression as a pp said that meeting people would be more child-focused there than in Edinburgh itself.

@fascinated just checked climate stuff. Objectively these places are almost the same temperature, though I can well imagine the wind in Dunbar making the’feels like’ noticeably colder.

There is definitely a difference in rainfall, though Linlithgow is nearly the same as where we are now. My health issues are made worse by damp and heat so East Lothian would be an advantage. It would be a reduction in humidity for us (here it is hotter and wetter). Moving somewhere cooler is perhaps surprisingly one of the reasons for this move! Though my non health related personal preference would be hot and dry...

I don’t think she went to Liberton (short on time and no suitable houses I think). @7DayStay

We don’t have to live in a traditional bungalow, it’s just a good option from the types of houses I know exist.

It must be the wind then. Honestly, it cuts you like a knife. Bracing. Some folk don’t mind, but just so you aren’t under any illusions. They call it Sunny Dunny, but it’s not hot type sunny!

Inland East Lothian might be your friend. A good few degrees warmer! Haddington is a nice wee market town and east drive to station

People who fly the Union Jack here are definitely pro union, but there are also nasty sectarian issues related to it. It is the adopted flag of Rangers football club, which is supposedly protestant.

The sectarianism is rife in the West of Scotland and the some of the smaller villages of West Lothian and Lanarkshire (think Whitburn and Harthill) but not too apparent elsewhere.

Yeah, Union Jack flag is probably bad news... sorry!

We definitely need to do a winter visit to Dunbar before buying there!

BTW if other people reading this thread are interested in finding out the type of info I’ve been asking for while house hunting it’s worth looking at the Electoral Calculus website.

You can look up by constituency and there’s some info even at Ward level. As well as left-right views it includes economic, social and global/nationalist views (not re Scottish independence they mean a general outward or inward looking perspective).

“ East Lothian ranks #585 for "Leave", #615 for "Right", #563 for "National" and #595 for "Social" out of 650 seats.”

It also then uses this to identify the typical Tribe in a constituency. The East Lothian tribe is Progressives according to this. Does that sound right?

Progressives
Description Blairites
Size 11%
Voting Strong Labour, but also Lib Dems, Greens and Nats
Three D Score Position Mildly left-wing, but quite globalist and socially liberal
Social Class Middle class, ABC1
Age/Gender 18-34
Education Well-educated
Religion Atheist
Tenure Private rented
Personal Status Likely fully employed or student; unmarried
Area Often found in London or Scotland
Media Guardian or Times
EU Ref vote Very strong Remain
GE 2015 vote Maybe voted Lib Dem or Green

I’d say Progressive is our home tribe, although we have some Strong Left tendencies we’re not really Blairites or Corbynistas more Brownites. Using this criteria Edinburgh itself or East Lothian would suit us out of the commutable areas (eg Edinburgh and Midlothian constituencies are Strong Left tribe), and we could co-habit fairly happily with Traditionalists (Falkirk, Livingston). A Kind Young Conservatives or Strong Right neighbourhood would do our head in though.

Strong Left
Description Left Intelligentsia
Size 4%, smallest
Voting Very Labour, also Lib Dem and Nat
Three D Score Position Very left wing, very globalist, very socially liberal
Social Class Middle class, ABC1
Age/Gender Male, 18-34
Education Well-educated
Religion Atheist
Tenure Private rented
Personal Status More likely not working; unmarried
Area Often found in London, Scotland and Wales
Media Guardian
EU Ref vote Very strong Remain
GE 2015 vote Might have voted Green, now Labour
Spiritual Leader Jeremy Corbyn, Nicola Sturgeon

OP don’t overthink it. Pretty much nowhere in Scotland is predominately Tory. Because Labour are crap up here Tories are hoovering up some of their votes and SNP we’re picking up the majority of them.

Dunbar is nice, decent commuting time and a nice wee town centre and community. Best to have a visit, maybe a wee AirBnB visit and get a feel for it. Good luck!

@fluffygreenmonsterhoody I’m not so bothered about what way people actually vote (for the purpose of this thread anyway!), but those more specific tribes are useful shorthand to get a sense of what people are like to hang out with. It’s a different experience to socialise with Traditionalists, or Strong Lefts or Progressives or Centrists but they might all vote Labour/SNP.

We have a viewing booked in Dunbar but currently packing up our stuff here and dealing with Christmas. H ealthwise I won’t be well enough to go to many house viewings so thanks everyone for your input, it should help to streamline the house hunting process.

Less than two weeks before we move up now , hope everyone else is having a less stressful festive season!