advice on moving to North London / Hertfordshire

[imaginaryfriend]

Dp's got a new job so we have to move from S London to N London / Hertfordshire. We don't have a big budget at all, will be looking for rented places and only have one dd who's due to start Reception next year. Any ideas of somewhere nice with a good primary school but not too pricey? Dp fancies Barnet but I think it might be slightly beyond us ...

TIA!

Thanks! Any particular areas to look for / avoid? Bearing in mind we need a nice primary school and we're quite broke?

I think most areas are ok-we discovered a lovely area by the park last week-can't for the life of me remember what it's called but Estate agents are pretty much huddled in one area in the town and could help.
Country Properties I know do rentals.

Only place I have heard anyone speak badly about is the Nightingale Lane area avoid if possible.

I THINK most,if not all schools are ok but if you decide you really liek it,I am more than willing to help you with a few more investigations.

Potters Bar isnt too bad - we moved there a couple of years ago and our ds is at nursery there which he loves. Local schools are meant to be pretty good and there seems to be lots of choice. Its only about 5 mins up the road from barnet and hadley wood but is much much less expensive. Some nice areas some not so great but you get a lot more for your money and nice big gardens for the kids too!

cjmummy we checked out Potters Bar once before and found it beyond our means. We really ARE broke .

So, WICGUW, do you live in Hitchin? If we arrive by train will we more or less know where we are - I mean will we find the city centre / parks / estate agents ok?

Hi imaginaryfriend. I so want to help you after reading this thread, and live in a village in the middle of a circle drawn between Hitchin, Stevenage, Welwyn, St Albans, Harpenden and Luton, but alas my DD is only 6 months old, so I currently know very little about schools in the area. I do, however, know that Hitchin is a lovely town, and very child friendly. It's not a big city in the same sense as London or St Albans though - much smaller and more traditional. I reckon you can get a fair idea by looking at which of the major high street stores are there - there is now a M&S Simply Food in Hitchin, but not a full M&S. There's a Woolworths, but I'm already struggling to think of any department stores there. You are, however, only a short drive away from John Lewis in Welwyn. I think of Hitchin as more the sort of place where you might find family run businesses.

As for where the station is, I didn't actually know myself, so have just looked it up here . I would recommend walking down Nightingale Road and then along Bancroft (which has a park and a Sainsbury's at one end) towards the High Street. I've a feeling that there are some estate agents along Brand St, which you'll see just off where Bancroft meets the High Street.

Hope this is some help.

Sorry IF-only just got back here-don't live in Hitchin but visit frequently as dd goes to music thingy there.

Hmm-station is a good walk from town-I would try and hop on a bus if I were you-you can always stroll around a bit later.
CSWS is right-Bancroft is home to a lot of the agents.

Grab a coffee in Cafe rouge when your batteries need recharging.

Sadly,I think the weather is supposed to be pants tomorrow so I guess if you like Hitchin tomorrow-you'll like it any day!

Good luck and let us know what you think.

CSWS, thanks, to be honest I don't really care about deparemtnt stores at this point, I"m so keen to get out of central London. Our biggest problem is going to be weighing up rent and commuting costs. It seems that an off-peak return to london from hitchin is £12 so I'm guessing peak ones will be substantially more. So I'm not sure what we save on rent will amount to anything if travel costs us so much. But we both, dp and I, long to live somewhere quieter.

WICGUW, thanks again, I really do appreciate your advice and will follow the directions you've given me. To be honest if you saw where we live anywhere else is bound to look rather fetching!

So IF-how did you get on?

Did think of you yesterday with all the rain.

Point taken about commting costs-rent in Welwyn Garden City would definitely be cheaper than Hitchin and Misdee is best for advice on areas there.Commuting costs however won't be MUCH cheaper.

Give us a shout if you need more help.

Think it's today that she's up here - even worse for rain!

Oh nooooooo.bummer-yesterday was bead enough although sun trying to poke through a bit....

Thanks for asking you two. WE loved it, really liked the place and felt we'd be happy there and happy for dd to grow up somewhere quieter than we are right now (which wouldn't be hard! Inner city SE London. YUK). The property prices were generally slightly cheaper than some of the places we've been looking at but alas for us when you weigh up the commuting costs we'd be paying more rent rather than less. I think we spent the day trying to convince ourselves we could do it, because we want to, but truthfully I don't think we can.

On the way back we stopped off in Barnet and also loved High Barnet and we did notice a few 2-bed flats around Barnet within our budget. We need them to have one room big enough to be dp's workroom AND our bedroom however ... Sigh ... I need to win the lottery!!

that you like it, but that it won't solve all of your problems.

If you really want out of London altogether, is it likely that your DP could get another job up here rather than the new one in Trent Park? What sort of work does he do?

Oh, I wish, no no hope of totally relocating at the moment. Dp works in a very specialist field and hardly any jobs come up anywhere - he's lucky to have the one he's got. I dream of living elsewhere all the time though!!!