My partner and I live in central London, where we can't afford a family home. We've spent a lot of months (and some tears of financial realisation!) scouting out areas just outside London and have liked Beckenham the best of all, especially the amount of green space and the family feel of the area. It appears to be just about affordable on our budget to buy a 2-3 bed home with small private garden. I have a couple of questions about the area, which we've now explored quite a bit and I would really appreciate the advice of anyone local :)
- Family homes within our budget appear to be on and around the area if you drew a line from Clockhouse through Elmer's End to Monks Orchard Primary School, although we'd love to be as close to the High Street and Kelsey Park as possible. What is the area around this 'line' like? Does anyone have any recommendations for focusing our property search?
- We want to move within the proximity of catchment areas for good schools, although we're pretty new to this and there's a limit to our budget, so we mightn't have opportunity to move as strategically as others could. Most schools in Beckenham seem to be good - outstanding. The school nearest to several properties we could afford, Monk Orchard, is the only one which doesn't have much information - it appears to have just been turned into an academy. Does anyone know much about the school? And does anyone have any general advice on schools you would really want to be near in Beckenham if you could stretch budget at all? What are the catchment areas like for the Harris Academy primary and secondary just off Manor Way and Kelsey Way?
- It seems that most Beckenham stations get to Charing X / Cannon St / Blackfriars/ Victoria in 20-30mins. Is the train service typically a reliable one for commuters, and is the journey so busy it's difficult to get on at all?
Really sorry for all the questions and would be so grateful for advice - moving house to start a family is such a big decision to try and get right!