Does anyone live in Basingstoke?

[katmam]

I was wondering if anyone lives (or has lived) in Basingstoke who could give me the lo-down on the area? We are thinking of buying a house here and have two young dds, so we need to take schools etc into account.

Would also like to know about any particularly good/bad areas of Basingstoke to live in, as it's quite difficult to get a "feel" for a particular town when you don't actually live there. We live quite nearby (Portsmouth area) and have visited once or twice, we plan to make regular trips up there to try and get to know the area and see if it's right for us. Any information (good or bad) would be really appreciated.

Ohhhhh, I grew up in Basingstoke and escaped, sorry only joking, to live with DH in Surrey 5 years ago.
There are quite a few horrible areas, most of which you'll be able to spot yourself but Oakridge, Popley, Buckskin and South Ham all have parts that are quite bad. I actually grew up in South Ham so can comment quite well on that area.
There has very recently been a new shopping centre built, which is lovely and the town centre really seems to be coming up in the world, as opposed to 5 years ago when I still lived there when it was crap!
There are loads of schools to choose from so it's probably best just to contact the education
dept of the council for some info.
As for nicer areas to live, well Old basing was always the poshest when I lived there, it's like a little village but still in Basingstoke. Lovely houses there and ruins of an old fort/castle. Hatch warren is relatively newly built, in the last 15 years or so, has some nice house too.
I could go on and on and on but I'll stop before I blow the PC up.
If you want to know anything in particular let me know I might be able to help.

hi katman,im sorry i cant help with any information but we did called the local police to enquire about the area where we were moving and they were very helpful,state agents will never tell you the truth obviously we viewed a house and a friend of ours said the place was like the bronx so that`s why we had to make the police enquiries on the other house,good luck!!

Oppps Bad grammar alert.....there shouldn't be a 'but' between yourself and Oakridge on the 2nd line. It should be a full stop. Sorry it looked a bit confusing reading it back to myself.
Can't even use the excuse that I didn't preview because I did.

Thanks for that guys. We've actually just been up there this afternoon. The town centre looks great - I love the shopping centre and they seem to be doing a lot to "posh it up". But you can't judge an area by the shopping centre (more's the pity!)

We were thinking about the Oakridge/Southview/ Brookvale areas, basically because DH wants to be within relatively easy walking distance of the train station. Any other comments would be welcome - the more the merrier!

We lived near Basingstoke for 4 years, in a village called Laverstoke (west of Basingstoke between Overton and Whitchurch), but moved away 2.5 years ago, as we wanted a bigger house and couldn't afford it in that area of the country. This is probably not that helpful as we didn't live in the town itself (Laverstoke is about 10 miles away). If you're using the train, however, you could look at Whitchurch or Overton as there are train stations there with quite regular services, and it's much easier to get a seat on the train there than in Basingstoke!

In terms of the town itself, of the 2 new housing estates, Hatch Warren and Chineham, I seem to remember that Chineham was thought to be better (and they were talking about adding a train station there when we left). Old Basing was certainly lovely, it was a village, but Basingstoke expanded outwards so that's it's now almost part of the town - must be a very expensive place to live though. I'm afraid I don't know much about the other areas of the town though, or the schools, except that dh says that The Vine school (Vine or Vyne?) is rough! All based on playing them at cricket or football or something in the 80s when he was at school (we both grew up in nearby Winchester), so probably terribly accurate!

Have a look at up www.upmystreet.com - you can find out which schools are where etc and even see the demographic profiles of each area.

I am pretty near Basingstoke but hardly know it I'm afraid - have been there 5 times ever ! There's a huge housing estate called Hatch Warren which is really vast - but you can get large modern houses there for much better prices than in the villages, depends what you're after really. There's a nice village called Bramley to the North of Basingstoke, has it's own train station and very nice feel - we looked there a few years back and were quite tempted.

Good Luck

Hello again, I've just spoken to my sister who has recently moved house(still within B'stoke) and she said quite alot of the houses on the Southview estate are all concrete and she was unable to get a mortgage on them. Brookvale has some lovely older sytle houses, well within walking distance of the town centre and train station and this is where my sister used to live. However I really would advise against Oakridge as there really are quite alot of bad areas and un-savory sorts in that area, I know alot can change in 5 years (since I left) but in the 24 years I was there it was always quite rough and I'm far from a snob especially being a South Ham girl (see my earlier post). My sister said that a new area called Oakridge village is nicer but it's up near the hospital and so quite a walk for your DH. Another area you could concider is Eastrop, which is very close to the town centre and station. I think it may even be closer than Oakridge and Southview, and about the same as Brookvale.

Ohhhh typing all this makes me feel quite home sick. I hope it helps you and I'm glad you enjoyed your shopping trip today.

I've come to this a bit late! But nevermind, spookily I live in Laverstoke now, I almost freaked out when I saw what LizC had written, its not exactly a large village, which end did you live at?
We've now lived here for 18 months, so we missed you!

But getting back to Basingstoke, I would recommend one of the villages with a railway station, like Bramley, Overton or Whitchurch. If you choose one of the last two they both have reasonably good schools and a good community spirit. Also with Overton and Whitchurch you are have easy access to four decent size towns/cities, Basingstoke, Newbury, Andover and Winchester.

Overton has a very good playgroup, er, well I could ramble for hours. But if you want to know more just let me know.

HTH