Where to live in North England

[Cazleanne]

We need help with finding an area which pleases all the family and a place to put our roots and hopefully be forever.
We moved to North Sheffield for work commitments 5 years ago and we got it so, so wrong. To put it honestly, I can't stand it here.
My daughter is at Leeds uni and now she's in a long term and talking kids in next 5 years etc it's got me panicking we're all going to end up stuck here forever. I love my house and we have all conveniences on our door step but I'm not happy at all.
My 2 boys are 16 and 7 so we have looked at Ripon, Malton, Wetherby so far and even though we love the little towns, I don't think there'd be enough to do without having to keep travelling etc. We're not the hiking kind although we do like to get out for strolls and picnics etc.
I love having retail parks etc near by but I want somewhere with a village feel and less crime.
We can move to anywhere within the North really as long as it's within easy reach of trains for my daughter and commutable roads for us as we're contractors.
Don't want to get it wrong again so really need some help for areas we may not know that have what we need for everybody as well as good schools and where we can get a 4 bed detached with a good garden for a budget of around £450k.
Sorry for long post but I'm at the end of my tether here, we're so unhappy.

Wath is classed as Rotherham not Sheffield isn't it. I was born in Rotherham, so thanks for looking down your nose at us all.

The Peaks, Nether Edge, Crookes, Tickhill, Bawtry, Wickersley, Bessacarr, Wentworth, Malton, Harrogate.

North Yorkshire/Durham border- Barnard Castle or surrounding villages. It depends on your budget though. Barnard Castle is absolutely lovely

Sorry for triple posting!! Barnard Castle is 10 min from the A66 and a further 10 min from the A1 leading to the M1. When we're travelling back down it take us about 45 min to get to Leeds

Most of these recent suggestions, whilst great places, have already been discounted or are too far away for the OP from what has been said. From Durham it's an hour and a half down the A1 to get to Leeds, and I'm guessing a lot of the commute will be south of Leeds or across Manchester way.

(And I'm not quite sure what the problem is of suggesting a place with good schools, when that's one thing the OP has asked for.)

OP, what would you like house wise? New build, period etc? How negotiable are you about it being detached? I get the feeling that what you would ideally want isn't likely to come up in the pricier parts of Leeds or York. You probably get slightly more for your money in Wetherby.

Yeah Wetherby might be a good call. Nothing wrong with good schools at all! I just think Horsforth is hugely over rated on here, on all fronts including schools and I don't know why.
If it were me I would go for South Sheffield /North peaks. It's gorgeous round there.

You're right it does come up a lot. But I live there so am probably being a tad overprotective

I think the schools thing is that it is a combination of generally good primaries and a decent secondary. Other areas around Leeds are a bit more mixed and you sometimes need to be in quite specific areas to get into the good schools, e.g. in Roundhay. (Though Cookridge is worth a shout as Ralph Thoresby seems to have improved quite a bit over recent years.) The other thing I've noticed is that while there is still crime, particularly burglary, there aren't really any particularly dodgy parts, whereas other 'nice' north Leeds suburbs are often pretty close to not so nice areas. Traffic in Leeds is generally bad, and at least there's a train station (two, if you count the new one at the forge).

South Sheffield is great, but price wise is probably similar to North Leeds/York (e.g. Dore).

I'll try and reply to you all but bear with me 🙈
No offence to people of Rotherham, sorry if it came across that way. It's just not for me but I certainly don't look down my nose at anyone ✌🏼
Beverly is lovely but there's just no easy way of commute from that side of York.
We've now put Yarm into the equation as it's surprisingly the same travel time as Ripon due to better roads so we'll be looking into that more.
We're quite happy to downsize to a semi if needed for the right area. I grew up in a pre war one in St'Annes and absolutely loved it so bay windows are a love of mine ❤️

I've not heard of barnard castle so I'll look at that too but it does look a little far out for us.
I think Leeds itself is a bit populated for what we want, we prefer the market town feel to the trendy family areas although I do like a nice wine/tapas bar 👏🏼😊

I would go for Sheffield proper on the south or south west side. I know Wath and I'm not surprised you don't like it.

Throwing out a wild card: what about North Nottinghamshire? Excellent transport links to M1 and A1....good rail links from places like Retford, Doncaster, etc.

Yarm, Northallerton, Richmond, Ripon, Harrogate,

If Yarm is in the mix, look at Northallerton, Thirsk, Stokesley. Maybe even Great Ayton?

Oh, and maybe Gisborough

Thank you so much everyone. We went to Yarm for the weekend and have fallen in love. A little bit worried about the prison there but I've not found anything negative about it.
There's a little village called Kirklevington which is small and beautiful so I think we're going to start looking at houses in Yarm. Fingers crossed 🤞🏼

Kirklevington prison??? Dont worry about it. It's more a half way house for those nearing the end of their sentance. There is a cafe open to the public. And a car wash. You hear more about holme house prison up at Portrack Estate.

Yarm would be better than Kirk Levington for the boys. Also, on your budget, look at old Egglescliffe- walking distance from Yarm High Street.

Kirk prison has the best car wash and cafe around. I work just outside of yarm and live in nunthorpe - 20 min commute at the worst of times. Lovely place, train yarm to leeds direct and to York too.

Thank you both, I hadn't found anything bad about the prison so it's good to hear its more a half house as that's what I thought. I did worry that Kirklevington May be too quiet for the boys but all the new houses in Yarm worried me for getting the youngest into a school.
Looks like we have a lot of homework to do now we've found what we think would be the perfect town

Knaresborough is lovely and good train lines to Leeds, Harrogate and york :)

Horsforth is a bit blugh (PP explained that well).

Lots of new housing being built in knaresborough too.

I’m sure this will qualify as the most annoying post ever, but given your requirements why on earth did you move to Wath in the first place?

And as others have said it isn’t North Sheffield, it’s Rotherham. Just because you hadn’t heard of Rotherham doesn’t mean you can relocate Wath into another area.

I live 5 mins from The Trafford Centre. You did live somewhere semi rural and get your shopping fix there e.g. Lymm or a nice suburb of Warrington.
Personally, I'd go so where in the Ribble Valley or near to Southport.

Could not did

Thank you mrs fezziwig for the most pointless reply ever. You sound like the locals I'm attempting to move away from. I'm hopeful you're a kinder person deep down somewhere

Thank you very much kakfor, that will be very useful

We did look over that side of the Pennines as I'm originally from St'Annes and all my husbands family are around Cheshire but it'd be too far for my daughter to travel from uni. Thank you though, I do miss the area.