Beverley or Yarm?

[Cazleanne]

Hi,
We are moving further up north to where we are now and have fallen in love with both Beverley and Yarm.
Can anyone advice us on which one they think would be better for a family with 2 teenagers and a primary age child that we may have overlooked.
Any advice on pros or cons of either area that we may not know with not knowing the areas.
Tia

Anyone local to these areas? I would love to hear any pros or cons to either

I have been to Yarm. It’s lovely but rural.

Where would school be? In Yarm? What else would your DC do? What do they enjoy doing in their spare time and which town would serve this best? What else do you need from your town? Do you need rail or motorway access? Where are the better houses? What about shopping?

I think of them as holiday areas and I’m not sure I would live in either!

I used to live in Beverley. It's a nice market town, only issues are around transport. Parking can be horrendous - look carefully at parking arrangements for any prospective house purchase. Also the traffic can be pretty horrible at peak times.

However, bus and train links are good to Hull and Leeds. Where would you be commuting to and how?

Hi OP

I live around 10 mins away from Yarm and would not class Yarm as rural. It's close to a lot of points within Teesside - Eaglescliff, Darlington, Sedgefield etc. Train station in Yarm too.

I've never been to Beverley but would recommend Yarm as a lovely place to move to - only negative thing for Yarm is the parking in the actual town part! It can be a nightmare, but I suppose if you live there you could just walk down.

The main school I believe is Conyers and has good reviews there. Lots of lovely restaurants, bars (is busy on weekends tho!) and as I've said very good links to other areas of Teesside. Close to some lovely parks - Stewart's Park, Ropner Park & the beaches are close I.e Redcar and Saltburn. Shopping wise it's not too far away from Teesside Park and Middlesbrough town centre / Darlington.

Either way - good luck with the move!

East Yorkshire local here. Beverley is fab & very popular as are the surrounding villages. With teens you want to be in catchment for the single sex secondaries, which could be one of the villages. As PP said traffic at rush hour can be an issue but road upgrades & dual carriageway from Cottingham on way.
Lots going on in terms of festivals, ERT & sports opportunities.
Ask away.

@Simpled thank you very much, you've mentioned some things we didn't know about.
Do you know what Preston Park is like as that looks quite near and good for kids?
Also do you know if there's any immediate areas to avoid?
We like the look of Kirklevington, Yarm itself and Egglescliffe.
Really appreciate the help

@FreeFreesia thank you for reply. It was very busy when we went last weekend and a bit hard to get around all the parking; is that every weekend so you know?
Are there any good/bad areas at all and are there any large areas for kids activities like playgrounds, lakes etc?
We loved Walkington, do you know if that's as quiet a village as it looks?
Thank you for any help

@OutrageousFlavourLikeFreesias thank you for your help.
You mentioned it's good commute to Leeds, could you tell me how often and how long the journey is. My daughter is at uni in Leeds so it would be great if she can travel to visit easily, it was the main thing putting me off as I thought it was 2 trains and a lot of waiting around

@BubblesBuddy thank you and sadly all the questions you mentioned have already been answered which is why I'm so confused. Both areas would work great for us either way and I just can't seem to decide which one would be a long term forever home.
Is there any reason you'd not live in either or is that just a personal preference?

Ah completely forgot about Preston Park - that’s probably the closest actually. It’s nice there’s a museum there and butterfly world which is literally a huge green house with, you guessed it butterflies. Think there’s meerkats, snakes and few other animals in an extension part too. There’s a skatepark too if your kids are interested along with a decent sized play area. Fab for nice walks along the river too.

I’m terms of areas to avoid I can’t think of any, my manager lives in Yarm and she loves it. Eaglescliff is nice and probably cheaper than Yarm - I cant help you on Kirklevington though as I’ve never been.

Ingleby Barwick is nice which could be another area to look in to if you were interested

The only downside to Yarm is the traffic. It can be absolutely atrocious at peak times, especially down the high street.

Kirklevington is very quiet and kind of inaccessible if you don't drive or don't want a long walk into Yarm itself so it may be rather boring for your DCs.

In was at Hull University, and Beverley was a lovely day out for us. You can also easily get to York which is a bonus as York would be very expensive to buy property in.

Ok, OP, but you didn’t mention any of my questions in your post. Often people find there is no space in schools in towns they like. If you move from a city some people find market towns limiting. However if you are all sorted, great. When I’ve been to Yarm I’ve seen countryside all around! But maybe it’s not rural!?

I live in Beverley, and I love it.

We moved from Hull 18 months ago into a rented property as we were having issues with DDs school, she leaves in a year but we like it that much we're buying here.

Parking in the town centre is a pain, but most of the nice or nice-ish areas have off street parking anyway. Wherever you move to inside Beverley will be less than a 20-30 minute walk to the town centre anyway, with buses. The parking in the centre is suspended every Saturday as they have a market, and often Sundays too as they put on very regular events. Don't let that put you off though, there's so much to do here!

Trains to Hull run twice an hour, which then connect to Leeds/Manchester/London etc. The Leeds/ Hull train is almost exactly 1hour, that train sometimes connects to Beverley, but more often than not would be connecting. However, as I say, they're twice an hour and take less than 10 minutes, or buses run very regularly too. You're less than an hour away from Leeds on the motorway driving too, a very easy drive.

Walkington is a lovely quiet village, as is Cherry Burton and many others around the area, but transport links obviously are not as good, you would be reliant on cars. I could manage quite easily without a car in Beverley.

@Simpled thank you so much for all the help

@Madvixen thank you, it's the traffic that puts us off Egglescliffe as we'd have to get to the A19 every morning.
Do you know if the buses/trains are good for the teenagers to get around?

@Davespecifico thank you for info. I thought Beverley had a York feel to it. I can imagine we'd be heading to the coast more as we've lived so far from it for years

@KnobJockey thank you, you've told me loads there so it's really helpful.
Could you tell me is there any large parks for kids and days out? The kind with lake/stream, playground, cafe and picnic areas? It's the only thing I've not been able to find while googling; they all seem really far away

Beverley has been listed by the Sunday times as the second best place to live in the north/north east if that helps!

I have very fond memories of Preston park as a child

No, there aren't any big parks in Beverley that I know of, just smaller ones. However, there is Beverley Westwood- have a Google of that. Also, Hull might be 15-20 mins down the road, but East park there is lovely and worth the drive if you fancy a park day- no good though just for popping for half an hour I suppose!

From Eaglescliffe you go up onto the a66, and quickly can merge onto the A19 without going through Yarm. It looks like the long way round, but really doesn't take much longer as it's all on duel carriageways rather than 30mph.

Yarm isn't rural haha.

I think I commented on your other posts too OP, I'm still an advocate for Yarm and all of it's surrounding areas - there isn't a bad one to live in among them

Walkington is quiet but with life. So 3 pubs & primary school, scouts, pilates in village hall etc. Playground, tennis & sports field by primary school.
Beverley Westwood is where you would go for parkrun, kite flying, dog walk, small wood & sledging. For swings/slides smaller parks dotted around.
Leeds Uni is easy to get to from Beverley area. (Did commute for postgrad study.) PP said 2 trains or 1 train to Brough (less than 1 hour) & parental pick up.
Parking in Beverley is busy at weekends but the newish multi-storey at the Flemingate end has helped. I've never found it so bad that I've not got a space somewhere. When festivals are on there is park n ride from the racecourse.
If you specifically want watersports nearby these are all popular www.wwac.org.uk/ ://www.allerthorpelakelandpark.co.uk/activities/ ://www.billabongwatersports.co.uk/watersports
and of course the coast is only 30 mins.

Gong back to your park question, yes people picnic at Westwood & you can get an ice-cream there. Easy to walk there from any part of the town and it goes all the way to Walkington. No other large parks because not a city there are lots of country paths on the doorstep for walking, cycling, streams. www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Attraction_Review-g190813-d10755017-Reviews-Hudson_Way_Rail_Trail-Beverley_East_Riding_of_Yorkshire_England.html

Tickton is another quiet village with good primary school which falls in catchment for the better secondaries.