Where to live in Cambridge for a family?

[emilyurse1]

Best neighbourhood for a young family in Cambridge? (baby is 5 months)
Pretty, quiet, no students or noise, ideally as little deprivation as possible. Can anyone recommend anywhere?
Thanks

We were considering moving to Cambridge (we ended up staying in London). Areas we liked were Cherry Hinton and Trumpington. We didn't like Mill Road area or King's Hedges. We haven't lived there, and these views are only from visiting a few times.

Cherry Hinton is nice

We also really liked the little roads around Jesus Green however they were out of budget.

Let's start with the brutal question: what's your budget?

Also, how close to various amenities do you want to be (station, city centre, science park etc.)

Newnham and West Chesterton are very nice, and pretty central. But very expensive. Trumpington and Cherry Hinton are rather further out; I don't know Cherry Hinton well enough to comment, but Trumpington isn't bad.

Totally depends on your budget! Cambridge is very expensive, which determines where most people will be able to live. Trumpington is okay and there's a huge new development there that extends to Addenbrooke's hospital. Grange Road/Newnham area very popular but completely unaffordable for most 'normal' people.

What's your budget? You could end up with students anywhere, not a big city and the deprivation is a little snobby!

Maybe consider one of the surrounding villages, although commuting is no fun

Also, if you plan to stay a while and use state schools, then I strongly suggest you look at options before you buy. The best schools are significantly oversubscribed; you'd need to not only be in catchment but as close as possible to the school.

We lived in Cambridge for a few years. We lived in Kings hedges and found it fine despite it not being considered desirable. Histon and Impington are lovely. What’s your budget? Do you need to be factoring in schools?

Like PPs have said it depends on your budget. Do you want to be in the city boundary or would you consider the surrounding villages? You’re unlikely to get students in the villages (although you might get some mature students still) and deprivation is less marked in the villages. Deprivation in the city can be quite a big difference with the affordable places being most deprived (Arbury and Abbey). Very generally speaking, you can spot the deprived areas vs non-deprived areas by seeing whether the ward is labour (or previously UKIP) or Lib dems.

Villages like Milton, Histon and Impington are close enough to cycle into Cambridge and have decent public transport links. They’re generally more affordable than Cambridge itself and won’t have areas of deprivation or pockets of students. Generally speaking, villages to the north and east of Cambridge are cheaper than those to the south and west.

Petersfield, Riverside, Newnham, Chesterton are all good for families. You can't really avoid students entirely but they don't usually cause problems.

As pp said, main consideration is budget and house expectations.

Petersfield or Romsey are reasonably handy for town and local shopping. Small enough for a community feel. Cherry Hinton is quite big, about as urban as neighbourhoods closer to the city but a long way from town and not the greatest bus route

We lived in Milton when our kids were babies and still have friends there. Strong community feel, lots going on in terms of toddler groups/classes, good playgrounds, big Tesco for day to day shopping and easy to get into town for everything else.

Romsey is brilliant! Close to Mill Road, station, parks, hip, close knit neighbourhood. We have young ones and they love it!