Commute Leigh on Sea

[Tabyria]

Hi all, so DH and I are having a second viewing for a house in Leigh this week. Exciting! The house is 20min walk to the station, which is great.

However, in spite of hearing that the commute to London is great, I've realised that the 20min walk brings the commute to 1h30 for me and 1h15min for DH :( Everybody I talk to says it's going to be nightmarish with kids and that it will put a strain on our relationship. Ironic, considering we're thinking of moving to Leigh in order to offer a better life to our children (we loose a bedroom closer to London and there they have the sea, etc.).

My colleagues say that 1h30 is too much, that if there is an emergency you need to be able to come far earlier than that, that coming back at 7pm is too late when you have toddlers etc.
I'm now lost. We were nearly ready to make an offer and now I everything seems impossible.

What is your experience? I hear mums saying how great the commute is all the time here so maybe you can reassure me?
DH and I will both commute daily and have a 9-5 type of job. DH isn't flexible but I might be able to work from home one day a week when children come.

Would love feedback. Thanks so much!
:)

Just pointing out that every child is different, don't adhere to text books, your plans of how life will be once dc arrive or, by my mum's own admission, her rose tinted memories of how things actually were. It was hard. And whilst we dc knew no different, they felt gilt every time they shut the door
But glad you have it all worked out ☺

Of course, every child is different. Really aware we'll have to figure it out for ourselves :) Just trying to have a rough idea to form plans.

Mum says it was hard because my dad wasn't around much and she was exhausted doing everything herself. But she never regretted working full time and never said she didn't see me enough. I never felt I didn't see her enough either, so I guess it helps me make a decision as to how much time we "need" with the kids.
I'm also aware I might change my mind entirely when I see my child for the first time and not understand how you can be parted even for one second, and become a full time mum haha! You can never predict these things :)

The commute from Leigh to Fenchurch Street is approximately 45 minutes. Obviously how far you live from the station and how far your onward journey is at Fenchurch Street will add precious time to your daily commute. In a situation where you are working full-time with young children, then you must consider living far closer to the station than a 20 minute walk and also bear in mind how long it will take you to get from Fenchurch Street to your place of work.

Thanks. Yep, obviously.
It's actually even only 35min at peak time to West Ham where we both change, so great. DH then only has 15min on DLR to Canary Wharf. But I have 30min to West End :(
On the other end: The thing is the town is designed in such a way that there really aren't any house within 2/5min walk to the station that won't be on a super busy road or not within our budget. So we're looking at ten min walk minimum. Might wait to see if something comes up on the market there but it's pretty niche and I'm not sure how big a difference the ten min we would gain would make at home.

I used to live in Normandy and commute to Paris every day when I was a student. 1h30, so I know what it feels and when it works it can be lovely to relax and read and I could be looking forward to it. It's more for the kids but many of you have brought answers already, which is very helpful.
I'll ask our vendors tomorrow how they do it (I think they both commute, have two toddlers and are moving to a bigger house in Leigh so they mustn't find it unbearable but they might have tips).

Of course I only know about my toddler's bedtime as he's my first :) He gets exhausted by nursery and is desperate to sleep by about 6.45pm. He sleeps 11-12 hours and we drop him at nursery by 8am most mornings so he needs that early bed time.

Also your question about illness - in my experience the symtoms have not been visible before droppng at nursery. Toddlers/babies seem to become ill incredibly quickly! He's been at nursery around 8 months and we've had to collect him three times for eye infections which have emerged during the day. Once they rang us saying he was teething and hysterical and could we collect him to which I said hell no! You deal with him, that's what you are paid for (I had a busy day of meetings I couldn't get out of). After some calpol he was fine :)
But you are right, I wouldn't base your life choices around things like this. If you have a live in nanny or au pair who can catch things if your train is delayed or you have to work late then it should be fine. If I moved to leigh I'd def' negotiate to work from home 1-2 days a week.

Schools are good in that direction too aren't they? At second level at least.

In the nicest possible way, you are making life hard now when there is no reason. You don't have dc, but are planning 3/4? You need to wait until you have one. You may decide one's enough (or all you can have) and you've saddled yourselves with a 3 hour commute. Trust me, you'd much prefer to see your dc then have a couple of spare rooms for grandparents, aunties etc.

Yes but two moves in 5 yrs will cost a small fortune in stamp duty in the London/ Essex area ?

But they may not need to move again was my point

Hi, thanks! I think you're both right in a way.

Tbh, I thought a bit like DangerMouth at the beginning. I always thought I would need to do things progressively anyway, buy small and move when we need more space. I had long conversation with DH about the fact that I didn't think we needed more than 3bedrooms, at least for the next 10years (kids, if we manage to have 2, can share until older). But DH was inflexible, saying that he wouldn't buy into the overpriced London market and pay our full budget for a crammed 3beds when we can have something nice and of good value somewhere else; if we need to move, there's also the small fortune of moving twice (+stamp duty twice) when we could have afforded the home from the beginning. And seeing how prices are increasing atm, slowing down in London but jumping outside, it's not impossible we'd end up being priced out of Leigh, or at least our desirable properties/areas in ten years.
But you're right, if we don't manage to have a second child, it will be too big.

I'm also aware we might not have the grandparents as often as we hope. They're in their mid-late 60s now and in 10years, I'm not sure they would still travel the world. Still, with a big/spacious home, we make sure family coming from Australia can stay for a month or more, just enjoying the kids and spending valuable time with them. They wouldn't stay if it was cramped and felt like they're in the way, and hotel is expensive so a month wouldn't be thinkable. There's also the possibility my mum might need to come and live with us at some point for many reasons (my Dad is older and has health issues and can leave us at any time. If he passed tomorrow, mum has already say there's no point for her to remain on her own in her country and that she'd rather be the childcare point for us. She has a small pension, no friends, no house to sell to buy somewhere else and I'm her only child). So the 4bed house is for that. Again, that might not happen for ten years, or my mum might get sick and need a more special place, but we could also need to move again in a year... We also plan to have an au-pair if my mother isn't here/too old or tired in ten years to deal with the kids, and the extra bedroom will help.

As you say, the schools are great there, both public (good to outstanding) and grammar school available if that's your thing. That's another chance we're giving our kids.

We've viewed the house we loved again, doing the commute on Tuesday night. And we decided to buy it!

The commute was nice. Took the train I'll need to get from Fenchurch St at 6pm and got a seat easily. It was quiet, and I got so much reading done for work! When we arrived in Leigh, DH and I looked bewildered at each other realising we were so relaxed after the train! We had a 17min walk to the house, it was wet and windy, but so vivifying. We always walk everywhere (to/from work for me at the moment, 45min each way) and keen hikers so that might help, and we loved the fact that the exercise was incorporated in the day (no gym needed, just a bit of stretching/yoga on top for me if I can at some point). I didn't have pink glasses and was genially scared of the commute, ready to back out on the bases of the advice that we got here if it was hell, but we liked it!

The family we're buying from have two toddlers and both parents commute most days. I had a frank chat with the mum, who said it was of course a choice but that they don't regret it. They have a nanny, which helps as there's no nursery run/phone calls etc. I think that would be our option too, or shared nanny if we can't afford our own and don't have my mum.

I'll definitely be able to work from home one day a week at least (one colleague is doing 2, so might use that precedent and try to get it as well when DC comes), and DH has had a chat with his boss confirming that in the end he could WFH one day a week too. That would change the weight of the commute for us, and the time spent with the kids!

I've also been less inspired by my job lately and have been thinking I might want to do something more "meaningful" whatever that is. I was shocked to realise that if we felt the commute was too much for our family life, I first thought of changing career/working freelance/moving jobs before thinking of moving house. One of our answers may be here.

So we went for it!

I still got up a bit scared this morning, definitely feeling it might be a bit ridiculous to move to that big house without even DC. I'm scared of not being in London anymore, as we're very central atm. But our weekends have changed in the last two years and we always either go out to our local café/brunch place or take the train to hike in the countryside/seaside... so realistically this will offer us a lifestyle that works best for us at wkds, with the ability for me to do work during the commute and free these wkds.
The last train is at 1am and while it takes 1h, that still leaves us some leaway if we want to go to a show/birthday party in London. And we can book an Airbnb if we want!

I'm coming to terms with it and getting excited. I'm keeping in mind everything you've said (thanks all for your support/constructive warnings that made me think about my life differently!), and accept we might decide in five years that this was a mistake. In that case, well, we'd learn.

@Tabyria I have found your post about buying a house in Leigh on sea 4 years ago and moving from London. We are in a similar position now where we want to make this move and trying to visit the place and get as much information as possible. How do you find living there? Does it get very crowded in summer? How are you dealing with the commute? We also heard that recently some people started to complain about the plane noise. I would really appreciate your feedback, of someone who was making this decision and obviously decided to go ahead.

Hi Villla,
So nice to re-read this thread.

But I'm afraid I'll disappoint you. In the end we didn't move to LoS and bought in Beckenham instead, much closer to London.

In case it helps, two things came up after my post up there: a colleague pointed out that, if we got an emergency phone call, We would want to be with our kid asap and that it would take us a good 1h30 at peak time to come back. Beckenham still isn't next door but it's 40 to 60min by taxi from my work.
We also found out my father was sick and the multiple trips to France without a car were going to be difficult without a speedy connection to the Eurostar.

This shook me and made us look at things again. Fenchurch street was going to be a pain as it was never going to be near my work and my husband's job has now moved from the city too so it turns out it would have been an additional commute for both of us. And relying on just one line could be a bit of a gamble.
We also calculated that the amount spent on two commutes to London, with yearly increases, would soon cancel out any savings made on the price of the house and would tie us into more expenses forever unless I decide to work locally in a different industry. I've changed job for a higher position in my industry that's very rewarding and it would be a challenge with the commute.
We now have a daughter and have a nanny but we wouldn't be able to afford it with the commute prices to LoS. For having used a childminder at the beginning, this confirmed to us that the pick up and drop off would have turned the whole thing into a huge race and very little time with our child.

We started from scratch again, looking at train lines and prices first, and lifestyle second and ended up in Beckenham. We have three different lines within walking distance of the house that serve all the main London stations. For had to pay a bit more and lost a bedroom but we can do a loft conversion later if we need to and we have a much bigger garden (LoS is strangely very dense), which has given us a lot of joy during lockdown. We don't have the sea at our doorstep but we have 5 different parks within 15min walk radius, including a forest, a swimming lake, and the high street is pretty good. Bromley is 10min away for bigger purchases and the Kent countryside is within 5min drive.

I don't know if your heart is set on LoS and I'm not trying to sell Beckenham but for us, we definitely feel we made the right decision in the end.
I wish you all the best for your move!

@Tabyria thank you for your comment and honesty. We are in slightly different position, because I can work majority of the time from home and only need to be in London 1-2 a month. My husband doss not need to go more then 1 a week. That's why the commute definitely does not worry us.

The only issue the priced have increased quite significantly recently in the area and we are trying to understand which part we like the most.