Hastings - shall we move there?

[migratingsouth]

DP has been offered a job in Hastings (we live in London and want to move out).

Does anyone know anything about the place?

We've visited and I loved the Old Town, the coffee shops in the centre of town and being by the sea. I'd love us to be near to DP's work as they work strange / unsocial hours in his industry, and it would be really nice if he could easily pop home during the day. Also I'm very keen on the fact we could actually afford a house there.

However I'm aware that Hastings / St Leonards has a bad reputation for having social problems (as has the bit of London we're moving from, mind you!)

We two pre-school DCs.

If it was just for me, I could happily live in a place labelled "socially deprived" - I have done all my life. However is this fair on our DCs? We're leaving London precisely because we feel it's not fair to bring the DCs up in our bit of it (and can't afford the "nice" bits). Would a move to Hastings be out of the frying pan, into the fire?

Can anyone tell me, what are Hastings / St Leonards like really?

[WobblyBanana]

Just to add - I grew up in one of the dark green areas and would never live there again, and I now live in a reddish area and love it

[WobblyBanana]

I haven't RTFT but in case no-one else has posted this, this is a really useful map. It doesn't tell the full story, of course, and won't tell you if it's a lovely community for instance or a beautiful view, but it's a place to start, and another piece of information.

vis.oobrien.com/booth/

[GirlfromLondon]

Hi,

Planning to move to Hastings.. How did you find Migratingsouth? Did you move in the end? How are you finding it?

[sandelf]

IF you don't need good train links - have a look at Bexhill. Smaller, very friendly, low crime, low prices. Wonderful weather. - Handy for Hastings and St Leonards, but not actually same place.

[Denizaki]

Hello,
We'd visited Hastings 3 weeks ago as a turist. We fell in love with it. Never had a bad impression. We are also considering to move to Hastings, St Leonards or Bexhil with our 2 primary school kids. Any updated experience will be appreciated. Thank you.

[Nicnox69]

Hi, I have experience of schools in the surrounding area, although they are private. I can highly recommend Battle prep, it is fantastic and leads onto the secondary in Battle in Yr8.
let me know if you need further info.,

[MrsJKat]

Hi, I know this thread is a year old, did any of you move to Hastings? If so how did it go and do you still reccommend it? We are thinking of moving from London to Hastings very soon too

[migratingsouth]

Let us know how your move goes :)

[totemgirl]

I am also hoping to move to Hastings/St Leonards this year and have found this thread very helpful. Many thanks

[migratingsouth]

And I almost forgot to say, the Pirate Golf looks great!

[migratingsouth]

Thanks Ingles2 :)

It's been very helpful getting all these views from people, I really do appreciate it. Mumsnet is great

We're going to look at schools, hopefully in a couple of weeks, I'll update when we do.

[Ingles2]

Great to see you getting lots of support south
I hope everything goes well for you

[migratingsouth]

I'm up for a Hasting meetup I think that's a great idea!

[migratingsouth]

Wow two weeks is fast! If that's typical it doesn't look like any of these places will still be around by the time we're ready to buy!

Still it's really useful to get to know the areas and what places go for and I -love nosing at houses anyway

[Carlitawantsababy]

Yes please migrating and janice to meeting up!
Not cheeky at all migrating, the similarity in budget was the reason I included what we had bought! It was on at £140,000 so no great discount but this may vary from area to area, the west hill is very popular (house was only on the market for 2 weeks) shame our reasons for the small budget aren't the same as yours

[CuppaTeaJanice]

Here is another house, about 2 minutes walk from Silverdale school, and 5 mins walk from the local shops and Asda.

Team Edward your cakes look delicious, although my appetite was slightly deminished by the picture of the chicken poxy child above them!!

Maybe we should all organise a Hastings meet-up, as there are so many of us on here!!

[migratingsouth]

Hi Carlita, lovely to "meet" you.

I'd definitely be up for meeting up once we're there, shall I PM you?

It's all very exciting

Can I ask a cheeky question? (As your budget is very similar to ours). Would you mind telling me - what was the asking price on the house you bought?

[migratingsouth]

Well we've made a decision (sort of!)

DP is going to take the job, so we're definitely going to move south. However not 100% sure whether Hastings / St Leonards or possibly Eastbourne (HSL definitely winning at the moment).

Hoping to start having a look at schools in a couple of weeks.

Thanks everyone for your posts and opinions, I appreciate all the comments both good and bad - useful to know areas to avoid, and to have our eyes open about the not so nice points. However I'm happy as we are most likely going to move before the DC are at secondary, as long as we can find a good primary then it'll be a positive move for our DCs - their quality of life will be great with a nice house to grow up in, and life by the sea of course!

Still up for advice! Got a way to go yet I think (got to put the London flat on the market now!)

[Carlitawantsababy]

Was excited to see this thread, DH and I have just bought a (3 bed house on the west hill for £133,000) house in Hastings and will be moving from north London in about 3 weeks with any luck! we cannot wait, we absolutely love it there (my mum lives there so we visit often and know it quite well) and think it'll be a great place to bring up children (DS1 due in 11 weeks) we don't know anyone though so if any of you are willing to adopt us let me know!

[migratingsouth]

Interesting difference of opinion about secondaries :) Good to get different views!
We've got ages to go till then (8 years!) so I'll be keeping my eyes on them (assuming we do go for it!). But there's a good possibility we'll move again (out of town) before secondary anyway.

[migratingsouth]

Aerobreaking thanks for the post, I really appreciate it :)

I'd be very keen to know if you can recommend any of the community primaries in Hastings / St Leonards?

[TuftyFinch]

TeamEdward thank you, I am not a natural baker but I'm going to try and make one. DS would be so happy if it worked. He's always asking me to make cakes. I do try but a fair few end up in the bin