Nice places to live near the M3 - Please help us come up with a shortlist!

[Puffthemagicdragongoestobed]

We are looking to relocate from South London to a nice village or town near the M3. We still need to be able to commute to London. We need good primary and secondary schools, have a boy and a girl. We have a budget of up to £900k and could potentially stretch to £930K.
We are a bit overwhelmed looking at the map and would like to shortlist a few places. Have already considered Guildford and Winchester but haven't visited either.
Thanks so much!

It depends if you still want to be with the same people? Guildford and Winchester will be full of people who have done exactly the same before you- so they will still have the rat race London ethos. If you do want that feel you can probably add Godalming and Farnham to your list.

If you want village type living, how about Egham or Virginia Water, both have railway stations, or smaller villages nearby such as Englefield Green or Thorpe might suit. All very easy access to the M3/M25/M4, close to Great Windsor Park which is beautiful and Thorpe Theme Park. Some areas may have aircraft noise though, but it is a beautiful part of the county with some lovely properties, expensive but within your budget.

Winchester has fantastic schools. I like Winchester.

Thanks all.
Interesting point, Lowdoowinthewal1, about the kind of people. What I like about the people where we are currently is that they are friendly, open, liberal. I would be looking for a place where there is a good community spirit and friendly people who are open to newcomers. If this is where the other Londoners have gone - great!
Thanks Spickle, I will have a look at those places. Their proximity to Heathrow is also great as DH has to travel a fair bit for work. I think I would like village type living - we are quite outdoorsy and we are very tired of the busyness, the traffic and the pollution of London.
On paper Winchester seems to tick most of our boxes, I am just concerned that it seems quite pricey and the commute may be too long, when you consider door-to-door.

Any opinions on Fleet at all?

Sorry me again ! 🙄
I think people in fleet love it but I personally find it a bit uninspiring but then I love rural
Life and genuine country pubs etc so Fleet isn't really my scene. The Hart shopping centre is a bit sad and has Lots of Empty shops. It's not that pretty either in
My opinion (sorry that's a bit shallow!)

I'd avoid Guildford. Winchester is lovely and lots of gorgeous surrounding villages and excellent schools. You could also consider downwards a bit towards Romsey?

Basingstoke = Concrete Jungle (In my opinion) and is called 'Amazingstoke' and 'Basingrad' by people who live there.

However, there are nice places around Basingstoke - very close to Junction 6. Hatch Warren.... Dummer (beautiful)... Chineham.... Close to the A33 and Reading.

Takes 50 minutes on a fast train to get to London Waterloo and costs £40.30 a day return at peak time... a weekly season ticket costs just over £100 at peak time.

Basingstoke Town centre is currently being redeveloped in parts.. new shops, very few empty units (if any). Massive less than 2 year old Waitrose and John Lewis Home (Hurrah!) and also more Lidl, Aldi and M&S food shops around...

Less than 30 minutes to Winchester for lovely Farmers Markets and less than 1.5 hours to North East London to visit friends (You can tell where my priorities are )

Thanks again. Have started looking at houses around Hook on RM and looks like we can get something fairly decent for our money.
Ok Fleet is out then, not keen on 'uninspiring' for our potential forever home!
Will also look in the villages around Basingstoke.

Have you looked at horsell? A village really close to Woking. Lovely community feel, good schools, near the countryside and very frequent trains to Waterloo

If this is where the other Londoners have gone - great!

That's ok then, you can continue to stress about tutors, nannies, who's school is the most outstanding, whether 8 extra curricular activities is enough and whether you should extend your million pound pad or stretch to the two million with everybody else in Guildford!

Have a look at Farnham. Beatiful town about 15 mins from fleet but much prettier.

Has really good schools too and a train to London.

Hart: Fleet, Hook, Yately, Hartley Wintney, Odiham etc etc. was always considered to be sleepysville, however after it was named as the no. 1 district to live in a few years ago, the big developers have gone bananas trying to get permission to build over as much of it as possible (facilitated by the Hart council not getting its act together to re the local plan) - hence the "super village" mooted for Winchfield/Dogmersfield, Pyestock (ex MOD land), more in Church Crookham, extra development at Hook and so on.

So if you have set your heart on Hart, check the online planning very carefully.

If you actually want to live in a small village as opposed to a M3 commuter dormitory land type village (Hook) then look at the actual villages around Basingstoke as named above and also others such as Upton Grey, Mapledurwell, Rotherwick etc.

Thank you. Great insider knowledge here! X

Fleet is nice