Rural village v lovely town?

[Blondie87]

This is more of a wwyd!

Found our dream house in a little village that only has a school and a pub. No little shop or anything. Love it but I've never lived in such a quiet, rural setting.

On the other hand, there is a great town with all the amenities I'd need for a young family but house prices are much higher and not as nice.

I want to meet people as I will be new to the area so the town may make this easier but the countryside and the peace are lovely.
Thoughts?

Sounds like the decision we've just had to make. We're going for the village, but it's a 5-min drive/ 30 min nice walk/ 10-min cycle from the town. We're getting a bigger house (with lovely views), but access to the town we love. We're also choosing to send DC to school in the town, rather than village, as the town school is better, feels more 'buzzy' and is bigger (i.e. more funding, more opportunities for friendship groups, etc).

If you have a young family how far to schools, cubs, dance classes, etc.

When they're teenagers how much are you prepared to play at taxi after they've been at friends houses, etc?

With young children village all the way. It's safe, great community, fantastic local school and just a quiet and clam existence. That said we fully intend to move to the nearest town that is just 3 miles down the road when we get to high school age, our eldest is 8 and today alone we've had to drive out twice for one of his hobbies and a party. It's just a a bit of a faff and I want my children to have some sense of independence as teenagers. I'd say have a look at the public transport, but be wary, our village has 2000+ people and used to have a very good bus service, this year they've cut it to 2 hourly and no weekends!

Somewhere with things to do and people to meet beats pretty but in the arse end of nowhere, for me.

I’d say town. My dc are now 10 and 7. We live in a large village. It’s so handy that the 10 year old can walk himself to Cubs, cricket, school, friends houses. From the point of view of independence for older children, I’d go for the town.

We live in a little village, and generally there is a huge amount of village activities, from helping elderly, to coffee mornings, a whole host of things that will get you involved, I would suspect it's easier than in a town.

However the kids thing is an issue, how easy will it be for them as they get older to have a social life?

We moved to a little village but we did it when our daughter was in her last year of senior school, we knew we'd spend a lot of time playing taxi for that year , and we did, but we were willing to accept that for a year and wouldn't have wished her to be penalised socially due to our location choice.

We are staying in town although I would love to live in a more rural setting. As my children get older (eldest is 15, youngest almost 9), it is a godsend not having to drive everywhere, or worry about them cycling on rural lanes. They can walk to school/friends/cinema/leisure centre/after school activities - if we lived more rurally, I would spend my life in the car and they wouldn't develop any independence/street wise sense.....

Nice town all the way

We're also choosing to send DC to school in the town, rather than village,

So you move to the village but then end having to drive your children to school. Nothing beats the flexibility and general relaxed nature of walking to school

Thank you for all the responses. The deal breaker with the village is the school is a 30second walk away! However, it is usually oversubscribed and as it's for a September start there is a big risk we might not get in so would have to drive elsewhere which would not be great but we are also in the same situation for all the good oversubscribed schools in town.

I think this would be the ideal home for while the kids were at primary school permitting they got in! Then we'd move to a town.

Thank you for all your perspectives!