West Sussex move -- advice on neighborhood

[nitamac]

Hello Everyone! I've been reading through posts a few weeks now and mumsnet had been a big help. Dont know if I should post under "property" or "education"..confused My family and I are moving to West Sussex area from overseas. DH has work near Chichester area and looking for good place to live with a good sixth form school/college near area. DS1 is 16 and DS2 is 14. We'll be moving next year. We're thinking of applying to Horsham (Collyer Coll), Billlingshurst (Weald), and Worthing College. My question is -- will the 40min travel from these areas to Chi be a big problem for DH? (we're not very familiar with commute in England. In our country, 1-2 hours travel to/from work is normal; but I know in some 20min is considered "heavy" traffic) Thoughts on the neighborhood and knowledge of kids going to school in these colleges most welcome smile

I am in the worthing area and worthing to chichester is a straight forward run and would be the better of the 3 commutes.
I live in goring by sea so quite local to worthing college annd have a son starting there next year and another one the year after. It is a good college on several different sites in the worthing area.
I like this area, it has good schools, transport links, nice coastline and plenty going on. The housing is reasonably priced and a good mix of different types so if you say what you are looking for i will my best to help.

I don't know about schools/colleges but both Chichester and Horsham are very nice.

Chi and Horsham are nice

I have to say that although it is straight forward to get to chichester the traffic at rush hour can be horrendous. Especially when there has been a lot of rain.

I too live in Worthing and i like it

car commute worthing- chichester awful!! even if you live on the West side of Worthing (thus removing the Sainsburys bottleneck) there's still Arundel and then whichever of the eight roundabouts of fun in your way..

billingshurst Weald v. good school.

Will watch this thread as we are pretty much considering a move to the same area. We are currently in Surrey but for the past year dh's work has covered the Chichester - Worthing - Horsham triangle and the commute to Woking is getting a bit much.

We have a ds currently in Y8 and a dd in Y5. Dh is mostly considering Billingshurts / Pulborough whereas I am drawn to Chichester.

Will watch this thread with interest

dd is currently in Y4. Not that it makes much difference other than she has two years of primary left...

..though looking at the map Horsham would be just as bad, and further than Billingshurst...

you'd have to drive that one at rush hour before deciding... those country roads flow freely when i have driven them (not at rush hour) but it could be a very very different story.

Thank you everyone for your response!
Cantspel, I am really encouraged about the Worthing area by your post. Can you recommend a good site where I can start thinking about a good neighborhood for my family? We're considering long term rentals. I'm still thinking whether house or apartment (must be easy to clean ), ideally near the school.
Rhubarbgarden,Custardo, EdgarAllenPimms: what does "horrendous" traffic during rush hour mean? In my country "horrendous" qualifies as 15minutes non rush hour vs 2 hours at rush hour for 14 km worth of drive :o can you give an estimate on how many minutes it takes from chi to worthing on a typical non rush hour moment vs during rush hour? or to Billingshurst?
EdgarAllenPimms is right, it might be good to drive by to test but we're still overseas so that needs to wait until we move.
Behindlocknumbernine, hope you could also post if you find finer details about your plans. i've been scouring the posts and saw these links that may help you: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/other_subjects/31233-bognor-regis-littlehampton-chicester-anyone/AllOnOnePage

Thank you nitamac. We don't have any concrete plans yet. Ds is going into Y9 after September and we are worried that given the state of the property market it may take up to a year to sell and buy somewhere. Meaning he would start a new school at the start of Y10. Not sure that is a fair thing to do to him? So we are still uhmming and ahhhing.

Dh wants to be within a 5 mile radius of Pulborough for work reasons. I have never been to Pulborough so pending a visit I could be agreeing with dh. I love Chichester but not sure about secondary schools there?

So a lot to think about before we narrow down an area and start to househunt.

Chichester is lovely and has one amazing secondary school, Bishop Luffa, but this is massively oversubscribed and also v strict on practising C of E entry requirements - parents often start going to church from year 3 onwards just to make sure. Nice Catholic school, St Philip Howard, in Barnham, a nearby village. Other secondary schools in town are Chichester High Schools for Girls and for Boys. Not such great reputations as Luffa but not bad. The Bourne school at Southbourne is very good but takes you further across towards Portsmouth. Chichester traffic is pretty dreadful after 7:30am. It's a gorgeous area though an there are beautiful villages, lovely cultural attractions and shops and countryside at every turn, even a farm where you can go and watch lambing and hold lambs. I moved here from inner Portsmouth and it's like the Promised Land!

PS: beginning of year 10 is an excellent time to move schools. After that it gets tricky because options groups will be full and controlled assessments for GCSE will have started.

I grew up in Worthing (went to Worthing College) and my parents still live there. It's pleasant enough and there are some lovely residential areas but the town centre is, to be honest, a bit shit now, especially compared to Chichester or Horsham. Just no decent shops and the whole place has a pound shop vibe to it, so if a nice town centre is important to you, I'd look elsewhere.

If you're still keen, then Goring is a nice area close to the college.

Also agree that A27 between Worthing and Chichester can be painful, especially the traffic lights by Littlehampton. A lot of single carriageway and too many roundabouts.

Collyer's College has an excellent reputation, Horsham has three very good secondary schools and many good primary schools. The drive from Horsham to Chichester without rush hour traffic is about an hour. During rush hour it should be fairly free flowing I think up until the outskirts of Chichester but you'd need to drive it during rush hour to be sure. Horsham is a lovely town to live for a family and it's close to Gatwick airport, M25 and London commute by train. Shopping is okay, it has a fair selection of shops with plenty of coffee shops and restaurants. Better shopping can be found in Crawley (20 minutes drive), Brighton and Guildford (both about 40 mintues drive). Crime rate is low and there aren't really any bad areas in Horsham. It has a lovely big park, a good leisure centre and a lovely market of local produce every week during the summer months. There are many festivals and organised events throughout the year, it's a good place to live for a family.

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-to-rent/find.html?locationIdentifier=OUTCODE%5E223&radius=1.0

Will give you an idea of the housing available.

Nice areas to look at are goring ( i live in goring hall which has a BN12 postcode if you want to see the area) or west worthing is also nice and local to the college

www.worthing.gov.uk/worthings-services/leisureandculture/

will give you some idea of the local area and what is available.

Should add that worthing town centre is not the best for shopping but does have a marks and spencers, british home stores, boots and a few other major department stores along with the usual poundland and sportsdirect. It is good enough to be able to buy most everyday items and had the likes of topshop and h&m to cater for the teen market.
There is a small market each wednesday and they often have a local farmers market or french market as well.

cantspel, thanks for the sites (goring hall area looks good)
Notnow.., i also saw the sites of schools you mentioned. The reason I'm not too keen on Chi is that we're not CofE, and would prefer a mixed gender school. I'm now looking into St Phillip, thanks for this. I was looking at schoolfinder.direct
Richman..,i need a "plus side" and "minus side" so your viewpoint was appreciated.
SophiaWinters, an hours drive during rush hour is good for me. Horsham looks like a good bet too. I'll look into this more.
My hope now is that when we apply to the schools, my boys will get a place.

Sorry- i probably was a bit dismissive of worthing town centre- everything Cantspel says is true - it's just not as upmarket as Chichester or Horsham, but then again, there is a massive out of town M&S/Next pretty close by near Shoreham and Brighton is not too far either. It does have a nice position, with the beach on one side and the south downs on the other, and goodish train links to London, Brighton and along the other way towards Southhampton

I also think Horsham is lovely and Collyers is excellent. DD aged 16 is going there in September.

Some useful links for Horsham that might help you.

All About Horsham, a free magazine which you can read online. Gives info about local life, events, features etc.

Horsham District Council website has lots of local information.

RAC route planner can give you an idea of the distances and routes to follow for the commute. However it doesn't take into account traffic conditions.

Visit Horsham also has plenty of local information and what's on.

Anywhere within the Horsham District is a nice place to live, there are plenty of beautiful villages if you don't want to be in Horsham itself :)

Chichester to Horsham in rush hour would be about an hour and a half, slightly less to Billingshurst. The Weald and Collyers are v good, v popular schools. Think you would struggle to get places unless you were living in the catchment area.

My dd1 has just finished doing 6th form at The Weald, we live in Horsham & she chose it over Collyers.We live close to the station & she walked 5mins to station, 10 mins on train & 5 mins in Billingshurst so easy really. She has really enjoyed her time there. Depending on where in Chi your dh is going to be working the train line from Horsham down has a direct service through to Chi & is about 40 mins.
behindlock If you are looking at the Pulborough area then move closer towards Billingshurst then you're in The Weald catchment for secondary school.
Collyers is 6th form only, otherwise in Horsham it is Millais (girls only) Forest School (boys only) & Tanbridge, mixed. Where you live in the town depends on catchment, generally west side of Horsham is Tanbridge & east side is Forest & Millais, although you do get some crossover.

badger, the Weald definately looks appealing. Would Pulborough be out of catchmennt? (for some reason dh has his heart set on Pulborough)

Pulborough is closer commute wise.

and there are some nice houses/ countryside round there.....

I would be very interested in seeing a catchment map for the Weald, though of course by the time it's relevant to mine it might have changed...

I think Worthing may be in the best position for 6th form colleges.

1. Worthing College
2. Collyer's, Horsham
3. Bishop Luffa, Chi
4. BHASVIC I believe I've put the best last :o and have no opinion on the others.

Worthing to Chichester,out of rush hour, from E Worthing,no messing with Lyons farm,straight through Broadwater-30 minutes.
During rush hour-depends on the queues at Arundel, so 45 min plus.

DH does this route every day but has to get to Havant so leaves at 6.45am to get through the bottlenecks.