How do I decide between Bristol & London (Hither Green)?

[BipBippadotta]

DH and I are at something of a life crossroads and need a big change. We are moving from our London neighbourhood which has bad / sad associations for us, and want to find somewhere we can have a nice quality of life, which for us means:

• more space (ideally 4 bedrooms)
• nice walks / parks / woodland nearby
• not an eye-watering commute
• minimal depressing urban scumminess (fly-tipping, drunk men fighting in the street, etc)
• access to friends / like-minded people
• a couple of nice pubs / restaurants nearby

*NB - no children (can't have them) so schools are not a consideration.

We have our eye on a huge, lovely house in Hither Green / Lewisham. It would be the house of my dreams, if it weren't near the scumminess of Lewisham High Street, hostage to a station where trains are few & far between, and impossible to get to from N / NE London, where most of our friends are. This place suits our budget if we sell up.

A more radical option we've been considering is moving to Bristol. DH can work remotely, and my job is portable. We could just about afford to buy a good sized period house in Montpelier, and hang on to our London house and rent it out. We've got our eye on a nice house on a little wonky street with a lovely view. Needs a bit of work (which we wouldn't immediately have cash for).

We can't for the life of us decide what to do & are trying to balance what would be a sound financial decision with what will bring us pleasure.

Pros of the Bristol plan:

• near lovely countryside
• can live somewhere nice & away from hideous London squalor
• can have a rental property in London which is a good long-term investment

Cons:

• only a couple of friends there
• further from airports (my family lives abroad)
• lower earning potential if we change our current contracts
• will be quite skint for a while

So I suppose what I'm asking is:

• is Bristol as nice to live in as I imagine it will be?
• is being a landlord a massive faff / worth the payoff?

If you live in Bristol, do you like it? Is it easy to make friends there (if you have no children & work at home)?

If you live in Hither Green / Lewisham, are there lovely aspects to it I'm missing?

Help me decide!

St George isn't dodgy! I lived there for 8 years back from about 2002 and I didn't feel threatened ever. I suspect it has changed as those who couldn't afford Bedminster / Southville moved across.

Traffic is a nightmare there though.

I'm and Ex Londoner who moved to Southville, Bristol a few years ago.

I'm afraid it's nappy valley round these parts too. There are lots of cats too though! Lots to do, good connections to airport, M5, walkable into town, to the river, the woods, the harbourside, but not noisy or busy.

Public transport is poor but there is a metro bus scheme coming into operation soon. Yes there is a residents parking scheme in Southville and most areas surrounding the centre but then that is fairly common in London so not really a problem for me.

We have friends in St George & it didn't strike me as dodgy at all. They love it & have a gorgeous 3 bed house right near the park with a massive garden. We looked up crime stats in our London ward & there were about 160 crimes reported in March this year; there were about 120 for the same time period in all of St Paul's. So basically no part of Bristol seems remotely sketchy to me. The weird thing about parts of London is you'll have a tiny little channel of twee artisanal coffee shops & one decent primary school driving up house prices in what is essentially a crack-riddled hellhole.

I apologise if I've offended anyone unintentionally - I didn't say St George was dodgy itself, I said there might be parts of it that were. I am very happy to stand corrected on that one .

Anyway, as you were ...

Oh no you didn't offend me, just hadn't ever thought of St George as rough.