Tell me nice things about Clacton?

[treewithtriplets]

Hi all,

Just had triplets and currently in one-bed flat, 2nd floor no lift, easy london. So need to move fairly soon!

Need to stay commuting distance to london (north london) and ideally essex somewhere to be near-ish to elderly mum.

Hope to get 150k ish for flat and would love a 3 bed house. Limited options obviously but looks like Colchester, Clacton and harwich are about all that's in our price range.

So views on those places much appreciated!

This isn't a 'forever home' we need, wouldn't expect to be there when kids are teenagers, but prob will for primary years. So not bothered about roughness of town centre at night, secondary schools etc. more important to feel safe in daytime, ideally a bit of a 'commuter community' so kids will be mixing with others like them at school, and not hellish commute for me.

Thanks in advance for opinions!

Positives about Clacton.. has a nice child friendly beach, and close to other nice seaside towns-Frinton/Walton.
Thorpe Le soken is a lovely village and commutable. Look at kirby cross too. Both nicer places to live than Clacton imo. Commuting from those places means you would always get a seat on the train.

But honestly.. I'd say your best bet in Colchester. Much much nicer than Clacton. Good communities and an easy town to live in with lots going on for children.

Congratulations on the triplets! How amazing.

Clacton is awful, sorry. Colchester is great though, I used to live there and we're hoping to go back one day. The train to Liverpool St is only 45 mins too. Ipswich is cheap and apparently quite nice too, I think the train is Ok from there.

For example, new town is colchester is a popular family area. 3 beds available for your budget.
www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-34104654.html

Colchester definitely over clacton. Go to clacton when you want a day at the beach.

And congrats on the triplets!!

Thanks for the responses everyone! Pretty much as I suspected on the Clacton vs Colchester front.

What is it about Clacton that makes it ropey? The people? Facilities? Or just overall sense of the place? Obvs can get a bigger and nicer (more 'done') house in Clacton so if the downsides of the area are livable-with just until primary school age then I'm still tempted by the area. Would the kids grow up with little thugs around them?! Is Clacton worse than east london?!

Thanks so much too for the specific area suggestion - as we don't know Colchester at all it's really helpful to pinpoint a nice family area. That house looks good! New kitchen and bathroom and it'd be fab I reckon.

God I hate moving at the best of times but with new babies it'll be horrendous. Can only console myself with the thought of getting more space.

Thank you for the congrats btw!

I thought that Colchester was hugely expensive over Clacton and not half as easy to walk around, but happy to be corrected. Clacton is run down with a heavy presence of older people who don't generate a lot for the economy, so not a lot of jobs for young people. And then there's the UKIP thing.

I know quite a few pleasant responsible Uni educated people who grew up in Clacton but they all moved away as soon as they could.

Some areas in clacton aren't too bad, areas closer to Holland on Sea are better than ones in town. And avoid anywhere near Jaywick

There is a feel about the place-which I think is true about a lot of English seaside resorts. (Esp in east Anglia. ) just feels grubby and that it has seen better days. I have no idea about unemployment rates,or ofsted etc but I wouldn't choose to live there.

Colchester is definitely much better than Clacton. Clacton is very run down and pretty awful in winter.

Colchester has lots of opportunities both employment and social. There's also very lovely countryside nearby. You can easily go to Clacton for day trips from Colchester if you want the beach.

Congratulations on the triplets!

Dh is from Colchester we lived there, and in Wivenhoe, just past University of Essex going from Colchester toward Clacton. i would go back to either, but Clacton has that end of the line feel. Depressing if you dont find the right neighborhood for you.

Day trips with triplets arent easy, but it's only an hour from Liverpool st. Go out and have a walk round if you can find a sitter/3rd adult to travel with you that day.

Sorry, I can't really. My family live there and Colchester, I moved as far as I could from it when I turned 18. I hate Clacton, you can't walk around after dark without being leered at or shouted at, during the summer it gets grimy at the beach, the high schools were awful when I was there (I ended up going to high school in Brightlingsea, I finished my education 8 years ago so it wasn't a huge amount of time ago!) and yeah, generally not a nice place to live, especially if you are not 100% white British. If you're Eastern European you'd be fucked in Clacton, there is such a culture of the immigrants taking all the jobs there.

RE employment, there are only really care jobs and they're minimum wage. I was there for 6 months in 2010ish with my ex and spent all of my time job hunting, I got two interviews in that entire time (both for care-homes). My ex managed to get a bank worker care position in a care home in Frinton. It's dismal and so depressing.

The outskirts of Colchester have some nice areas it seems, I wouldn't want to be too close to the centre and there are big traffic issues in Colchester according to those I know who live there, but that depends on where you live. Thorpe-le-soken was nice, Wivenhoe is alright but a bit boring (but as close to Colchester as some of the outskirts of Colchester).

Congratualtions on the triplets though!