best areas to live in Sheffield (sorry, I know it's getting boring!)

[SenoraPartridge]

by best I mean friendly and not outrageously expensive, with local schools not awful (though a bit below average is fine). pref near somewhere where we might rent an office.

Hi Fizz (and sorry Senora for hijacking your thread). Do you fancy a meet? are you still on mat leave after DD? The S10 mners I've met are a very friendly bunch.

S10 or S11 are your best places to start with. Good schools, good location and good public transport routes. Not far out from the city either.

New Whittington is a long way out and it is Chesterfield really.

Handsworth/Catcliffe is not too far out, but almost Rotherham. Excellent links for M1 and also pretty good for town, but you'd be hitting the main rush into town in the tarffic - busy road. However, schools aren't so great. Not best area, but nowhere near the worst.

worth checking out this site if your looking in the near future, they are selling off a lot of the ex uni hosuing stock and there are bargains to be had!

merlin estates

Sorry for hijacking thread. Yeah would like to meet up....but may feel v shy and dumbstruck if you all know each other......
Am still on mat leave(wish it was for ever...)

Merlin Estates are enemy no 1 on our road, as they are building yet more flats in an already highly populated road.....

You can contact me through Mumsnet....don't really want to put email address on here

hijack

I have only visited Crookes, being a Doncaster resident, but it seems a great part of Sheffield.

Ask Wedgiesmum or Clary about Derbyshire villages.

sorry for hijack again! Fizz - did you see on the news about merlin estates flats on the Bolehills blowing down! you can email me on [email protected], and we can arrange a coffee, maybe hercule! i don't work mondays or thursday pms

the Merlin Flats blowing down is quite incredible - friends of ours watched the news crews yesterday. Fizz - I'm happy to meet you one to one, if that would make you less nervous? I was really nervous on my first MN meet, and I knew one of the other MNers quite well. Will CAT you I am going to have a bit more time on my hands as DD starts school on Monday, and I have wound down my childminding in order to start a new job - but this won't be for a while!

Senora - back to the purpose of this thread. Any more thought about Sheffield and its environs? Derbyshire is lovely.

I am in Rotherham just out of the Sheffield border... I missed these flats blowing down!

flats fall down

thanks!

Its lulumamas fault... I was in Southport yesterday!!

i was gob smacked - look north ran a sheffield story first!!!!!!!!!

amazing!! didn't think Sheffield and Rotherham were coivered by the news!

last night we made it!i had wondered what the fire engine and police cars were about when we drove past yesterday, These flats are about 2 mins from me and my mum and dad were going to buy one!

I bet they are glad they didn't by the look of those pics!

blimey - that was some "freak incident".

all those of you advocating S10 and S11 - you did see my budget didn't you? (hopefully 160k for hopefully 4 beds plus yard/garden: we've been a bit spoiled on space). plus an office will be pricey there won't it? BTW when I say we've got to be commuting distance from a major city, that's so our employee(s) can live in the city and commute out to whatever town/village we live in, not the other way round, so traffic not a prob and hence not being bothered about being "aspirational sheffield". it'd be nice to be near enough to do a proper night out at the theatre though. I have never done that in my life.

hulababy - I like that "not the best, but nowhere near the worst". score on a scale of 1 - 10? and how bad is a school that's "not so great"? I have a bit of a thing about not writing off schools as long as they're not awful you see - I could bore on about it all day but I won't.

and gb - of course we'll have a meetup! probably as soon as I find out where doncaster is. god my geography is rubbish.

Didn't see your budget when I initialy suggested S10, think a 4 bed would be a bit hopeful for £160K, some parts of S6 are ok, so Hillsborough for example is fine, but the secondary schools are not so good, as Katz says Myers Grove doesn't get a very good press. Hillsborough is seen as up and coming, as Crookes and now Walkely have got more expensive. I don't really know much about the outlying villages sorry!

There are some nice parts of S6 and S35 which are more rural and feel as if they are out in the country despite being only 15 minutes or so from the city centre. Look at Walkley, Hillsborough, Middlewood, Wisewood, Loxley, Oughtibridge, Bradfield, Dungworth, Worrall. The last few are actually villages and feed into the very well-performing Bradfield Secondary school.

Not as much snob value as S10 or S11, but you don't sound as if you are bothered about that! Houses don't come up as often as in S10 though.

Are you calling me a snob UD?

I agree, Loxley and surrounds nice, and easy access into city centre, and Bradfield has a good reputation.

Where are you moving from SP?

Is that Loxley as in Robin of Loxley?

PandaG, SP is our Andalucian correspondent at the moment.

Be careful with the schools, SP, as estate agents will fib outright. There is a part of the city council website here where you can input any street name and it'll tell you the catchment for primary and secondary. Don't let them lie to you!!

Also, there is a big kerfuffle (said in Lou from Little Britain voice) atm, about Wisewood school and Myers Grove closing in time for a new "super-school" to open in 2011. HUGE local opposition and by no means a done deal, and I think the council have been a bit taken aback by the force of the opposition to the plan. Information here

Get Bradfield or Stocksbridge catchment and avoid the whole nasty business!

Yes, Loxley has a strong claim to be Locksley as featured in the Robin legend. But calm down, ladies, I've not seen Richard Armitage around. (I know how you think, you see!

Arf.

I saw a protest re Wisewood outside the Town Hall today - but didn't know the background. Thanks UD

There was a report about it on Look North tonight PandaG

thanks unquietdad - sounds good. and I see you answered my loxley question before I asked it. don't like the sound of a "super school" much, but dd is only 4, so there's lots of time to worry about it.

I don't suppose anyone can recommend an estate agent can they?