Where to live North Yorkshire

[Toon49]

Partner has new job in wetherby currently living in Darlington and not he best area of Darlington. Looking at houses in North Yorkshire area. Half decent schools would be good and a few pubs/shops are preferable. Looking at ripon but a little expensive for what we can get! Also looked at thirsk, Northallerton and bedale. Always have the option to stay around Darlington as it’s very reasonable but nicer areas of Darlington seem similar in price to North Yorkshire anyway!
Any advice on any of these areas would be great and any others people would recommend!
Thanks

Anyone?

What's boroughbridge like? Good access to motorway and easy for wetherby too. If Ripon is too expensive would Harrogate be too? I think Thirsk is a lovely little town, no idea on schools. Northallerton high school recently gone into special measures though.

I had childhood holidays around Richmond and Brompton on Swale/Catterick. Maybe quite a distance from Darlington but fond memories. I'd love to live there.

Speaking as someone who moved from London to N.Yorks (just not the pretty bit, sob)... Go and visit, try and hang out a little before you choose. Northallerton is actually a really nice town (it has a Waterstones. Tells you a lot). Wetherby /Harrogate are nice but expensive and Harrogate has awful traffic. What about North West of York, places like Easingwold?

Ripon is fairly expensive, it has two outstanding secondary schools, one a grammar school. I know two people who have bought new houses recently, basically the same house, one in Ripon and one Darlington way, the Ripon house cost 42% more than the one near Darlington.

Harrogate is actually slightly cheaper than Ripon, probably because there is more to choose from and the grammar school is now an academy which makes the Ripon one even more sought after if you want a grammar school.

Boroughbridge is a nice small Town and the secondary school is back on the way up (so I hear), good for the A1 which probably means house prices reflect that (I don't know what they are like).

I don't know Thirsk and Northallerton well enough to comment.

York has areas that are cheaper than both Ripon and Harrogate.

It depends what you like, villages or bigger, towns etc & how far you want to be from wetherby /York etc

Harrogate v expensive I would say compared to Darlington, ripon too

North Yorkshire is beautiful, I live East Yorkshire now, but I lived in Tadcaster for a few years, near to wetherby & cheaper with good road links to York, leeds and surrounding areas which was our criteria. Tadcaster grammar school is well thought of I think but not sure (no school age DC). Bramhope I think it’s called is near there too where they hold leeds festival.

I like wetherby itself, pretty, the village of Boston spa in between wetherby & Tadcaster is posh & a good area with countryside too.

Other areas it depends how far you want to go?

Knaresborough? Don't know too much about living there but the high school is great - did a couple of stints of supply teaching there and it's lovely.

Tadcaster is near wetherby but a lot more affordable. Nice small town / large village.

Outskirts of York on the east side would be commutable Wetherby. York is a lovely city.

Ripon is great - is about 40 mins from Darlington though - how far would you be prepared for a commute? Schools are good though and there is a premium reflecting that. Harrogate would be probably over an hour...

I would probably look at Richmond if you want small town and pretty Yorkshire, Northallerton is cheaper housing and nice place to live... or if you want out of the box look at somewhere like barnard castle or there are lots of good villages around

would love to live in Harrogate or York but would want to live central and not be car dependent. traffic is terrible especially Harrogate. Richmond is also great. as you can tell, I prefer towns to countryside.

Thanks for all the recommendations, we’ve been to Northallerton and liked the town centre. Might look into knaresbrough/tadcaster, etc although I currently am working in Darlington and family are in Newcastle so depends on commute/changing jobs!