Possible move to Wokingham? Advice please!

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Hello, to anyone that lives in or near Wokingham, would be interested to hear if you enjoy living there, and what are the good and bad things about it?

Thinking of moving out of London and considering it. It seems to come rated for families and a good place to bring kids up,

• what are the good state primary (and secondary schools)? and do you have to live ridiculously close to get in?
• is there a good community spirit? is it friendly and lots going on?
• can you get out to nice countryside without getting in a car - what sort of places are good for walks / cycles etc nearby?

Really appreciate any thoughts on the above and anything else that's worth considering if moving from london to the area with young (currently pre-school) children… thanks so much!

Also meant to ask, does anyone have experience of both wokingham and caversham in reading? and how they compare as places to live with young family? thank you

Caversham is a little bit more urban than Wokingham. Caversham is very near to Reading town center where as Wokingham is a town in itself. All the secondary schools are good as are most of the primary. Although I don't live in Wokingham I fall withing the borough for schools etc and I did live in Caversham as did my husband when we first met. You have California Country park nearby and also Dinton Pastures, both accessible easily.
There are good bus routes.
Loads going on in the area. There is a leisure centre with pool and bowling alley within walking distance of the town centre. I would be hard pushed to choose which is better, but I think Wokingham would clinch it as schools are better as they fallen under Wokingham District where as Caversham is Reading Borough. I have a 5 year old and would choose Wokingham. Before kids probably Caversham.
I would suggest visiting both at different times of the year, probably around now and later in the year.

Ooh! I used to live in Caversham, loved living there. 10 mins cycle to the station, could hear cows from back garden, Waitrose/library/doctor/etc 25 mins or 10 mins by bus. Left before kids went to school, but friends there mostly sent kids to Sonning Common if not in Caversham Primary or Emmer Green catchment (very lopsided catchments). Loved it there. Was handy too when we worked in Wallingford.

But we used to cycle through Wokingham on way to work too (worked in Bracknell, caught train to W and cycled from there), and we loved Wokingham too. Best Waitrose for discounts at end of day that my dh has ever found!

My parents live in Wokingham and love it. very friendly, nice small town, Waitrose, but they do drive everywhere. There is a bus system but I don't think they are very regular. It is very nice there, but a lot of the new houses are 'executive' types, and lots of new builds going up all the time.

My niece and nephew both went to Embrook School and have done very well.

Thanks so much for the replies!
Good to hear positive things about both Wokingham and Caversham. Thanks for the info.
I think the access to country from Caversham seems a big plus for us, but the school thing is a major consideration in this move and we don't want to move and then find problems getting into good primary schools.
Are all the primaries in Wokingham good? (Any in particular?)
Are catchment areas a problem at all?

Be great to hear from anyone in caversham too - particularly want to know if its a friendly place, easy to get to know people?

Anyone moved to either place - caversham or wokingham - and not liked it? (Pm me if you don't want to make public!)

Thanks so much!

The schools in Wokingham are good but MASSIVELY over-subscribed and it's getting worse all the time. So many houses have been built, and are still being built, that Wok council has admitted there will not be enough secondary-school places by 2017. In the past 10 years, the town population has tripled. Literally tripled. :-(

I've recently moved here from Surrey as it's my home town, have lots of family here, and I love it! But my youngest son (7) is in the worst primary school (Ofsted "Inadequate") as all the others have waiting lists as long as your arm.

House prices are steep too! Much more than I expected. Even coming from Surrey! We're forced to buy an ex-council place in a mixed council/private cul-de-sac just off the biggest council estate in town. A good, family-friendly 3/4 bed house in the nice parts of town costs easily £400k plus.

Reading is still much cheaper and you have the grammar schools there. I lived in Caversham 15 years ago and liked it.

You'll get more house for your money in Reading, and when the new rail link is completed, prices will rocket up. They're saying it's an excellent place to invest.

I'm glad I'm in Wok as my family are all here... But I wish I'd moved here 10 years ago when a nice house would've been more affordable and the kids would've automatically gone to the Good schools.

But there's lots to do in both places, and it's lovely for kids. Reading has the river and the amazing Oracle for shops, Wok has about 35 pubs! :-)

Moved from London to Wokingham in March as single with DS (family & grew up here)

It's great, I miss London but just not sustainable with DS so little.

Wokingham is lovely, I have made some lovely new friends, some who have also moved out of London.

I found it very easy to make friends in Caversham, it has a nice vibe to it. If you consider Lower Caversham, rather than the Heights then try and buy in Caversham Primary catchment, there are some not so good schools.
I live in Shinfield, which is to the south of Reading and about 15 mins from Wokingham (by car) near to juction 11 of the M4 so good for commuting.
Nice little village, peaceful, quiet yet 20 mins from Reading town centre.

Hi,
We moved out of London a year ago and initially considered both Caversham and Wokingham. We chose Wokingham in the end as we thought it offered the following advantages:
-Proper self-contained town centre with lots of independent shops whereas Caversham is really just a suburb of Reading.
-Virtually all schools are good so you don’t have to worry too much about catchment areas.
-Lots of historical buildings, weekend markets, community events and an old world feel.
-Regeneration starting next year to replace the remaining ugly 60s buildings.
-Better options for commuting as easier access to both the M3, M4, Waterloo line or a non-stop service (7 mins) to Reading to connect to the fast train to Paddington or if you live in north Wokingham it is only a 10 minute drive to Twyford and the train takes 30 minutes to Paddington from there.
We love living here and find the people very polite and friendly. We miss certain things about London such as the shops and restaurants but we have no regrets about moving and consider it a great place to bring up our children.
The only thing I would say is that there appears to be a lack of nurseries in the town which take very young children, most of them start from 2 or 3 years for some reason. If you are happy to drive there are loads of options in the surrounding countryside but KidsUnlimited appears to be the only town centre based nursery to take kids between 3 months and 2 years. Hence, there is a bit of a waiting list so if that is something you require then apply as soon as you have made the choice to move.

Thanks so much for the great summary - and yes had similar thoughts about the 'pros' of wokingham.Planning to visit in the next week to get more of a feel. (The only downside we feel is that it looks like not that easy to go on walks/cycle rides straight from the town without always getting in a car - is that fair to say?)

Which primary schools in particular are people generally happy with (in wokingham town itself)? be grateful for any thoughts. e.g Westende? which others are there?

thanks so much for your help!!

Hi,

In terms of easy countryside access, I think it would depend on the part of Wokingham. There are a couple of footpaths heading out from the south of town towards Crowthorne and another one to the west of town near the Ye Olde Leathern Bottel pub towards Arborfield but I don’t think there are many other proper footpaths from other parts of town. The private road past Ludgrove school (where Prince William and Harry were pupils) is an ideal route for cycling as it’s paved but with virtually no cars on the weekend. However, I think Caversham might be better in terms of easy countryside access but only if you live on the edge of the urban area away from Reading centre.

Schools:

I would say the crème of the crème are: Hawthorns, Walter/St Pauls, Wescott/Westende.

St Teresa is superb but it is a catholic school and most years it only has enough places for practising catholic families and nobody else gets a look in.

However, all the schools are pretty good, the only one that I’ve heard people trying to avoid is All Saints which is slap bang in the middle of Wokingham’s only proper council estate.

There is also a free school called Evendons which only opened this month at the site of a previous private school and which looks really good. There are also a few new primaries being built at the new housing developments in town such as Montague park but they won’t be open for a couple of years.

Thanks so much for your message wokcommuter - really useful info and v helpful.
We hope to decide between wokingham and caversham over next few weeks. Love the feel of Wokingham and schools sound great. But also like location of caversham.Any other thoughts or info much appreciated if anyone has a view!