Help - where to move surrey/Hampshire borders

[Susanna101]

Hello - first post, please forgive any errors!

We (husband, me, 2 yr old) are thinking of moving from leafy Tottenham to surrey/Hampshire (Farnham, Fleet etc) - main aim is to be somewhere a bit more family-oriented than Tottenham, nearer the in-laws in Alton, but decent commute to Waterloo for me, preferably so I can cycle to a station. We are not huge shoppers, and frankly most schools look excellent to us compared with N17 where various teacher friends are tearing their hair out, so I suppose main things are that there are other families, and that they are not too transient as we'd like to feel settled. Farnham, Fleet, Godalming, Guildford and places in between all look likely, but would love to hear from anyone with a view on Farnborough, Ash, Mytchett etc - other posts seem a bit down on Farnborough but doesn't it have some nice bits? Really grateful for your thoughts as it is hard to get a feel from maps and not that easy to make the trek every weekend to look around with a toddler!

If money was no option, then I'd say go for houses in the catchment for South Farnham Primary school. That's the best primary (split into infant and junior) in the area, and it feeds into a very good secondary - Weydon, unless you're Catholic, in which case you can go for All Hallows the other side of Farnham which is one of the top 100 state schools in the country.

Failing that, Fleet has very good schools. Crookham Village, Dogmersfield and Crondall are all villages which are in catchment for excellent primaries. Farnborough I don't know so well, but understand that Wavell secondary school is Ofsted outstanding, and Farnborough Sixth Form college is one of the best in the country, so even if you didn't get a fabulous secondary school, you'd get a brilliant sixth form if you lived in Farnborough!

Hope that helps.

Fleet is very popular with families and i would definitely recommend it as a nice safe place to live. It is a fairly affluent area with no 'bad' areas to live and the population is not very transient. All the schools both primary and secondary are good.

There is plenty going on in Fleet and surrounding areas to keep children occupied. Fleet isn't great for shopping but does have lots of good restaurants in the town and surrounding villages.

It's not as expensive as Guildford, Farnham and Godalming, but more expensive than Ash and Farnborough. There are lots of people who commute to London from Fleet, though i think more trains stop at Farnborough.

Downside is Fleet does lack character and is an ever expanding town with lots of development taking place - but then isn't everywhere now.

Farnbrough is ok and the housing is cheaper than Fleet. There are some really nice areas. My biggest concern would be the schools particularly secondary, so you'd need to check them out and consider catchments etc. It does have an excellent 6th form college and good private schools.

Hope that helps.

We're in North Farnham and it really suits us.

I don't know Farnborough so well but everything I hear about Wavell School is good.

Have you looked at the train times to London?

The trains to Farnham usually take between 50-60 minutes but there are more trains per hour to Fleet and some of them only take 44 minutes. Also, whenever there is a problem on South West Trains it is usually the Alton line which regularly seems to have bus replacement services for the trains to Farnham.

I know other people are focusing on schools, but the schools in the Fleet area are (as posted upthread) great and an easier commute can make your life so much less stressful.

Thanks so much everyone! Yes I've scoped out the trains quite a bit - I will only be commuting 3 days a week and work (NHS/university) can be a bit flexible about starts and finishes. I wish I didn't have to commute actually but I like my job and I haven't found anything to compete with it yet!

Money is not quite no object (I wish) but we're looking around the £450k mark and there seem to be quite a lot of 3-4 beds on for that in these areas - we are not fussed about detached or semi etc., nor that fussed about number of bedrooms.

Fleet is coming across as v popular amongst you so perhaps we'll take a weekend to scope it out. We've driven through it on the way to Alton in the past but never had a proper look.

Thank you!!

I liked fleet when I was making the same decision you are 2 years ago. The schools seemed mostly good, housing prices are ok and it's got an ok high st for everything you need. It's 50 mins to Waterloo though which we decided was just a bit too far for us.

I would NOT go for farnborough. It has a very transient population, and several very insular groups. It's also a complete dive! Seriously, don't go for farnborough. DH works there and says he's always quite glad to leave in the evenings. :o

Guildford is nice, good shopping lots of facilities, some very good schools.
I don't know Farnham well, but I've heard it's lovely. And we only discounted it because we couldn't afford what we wanted there (350k 3 bed) alice holt forest is lovely, lots of facilities for kids, very mc.

We chose woking btw, and we are very happy with that decision. I love it :o

Thanks again - bloob maybe I will check out Woking although the pluses of Farnham/Fleet are they are only about 30 min from the in-laws which would be nice (admittedly am thinking of babysitting and emergency nursery pick ups when I say this!).

Hook, near Hartley Wintney. Lovely place, very family friendly around there and very good schools ans a train station.