Where should we move to??

[1egse1even]

Husband has been offered redundancy and already has a work from home job offer. With equity we will have a cash budget of 350k to buy a house outright. We have 1, 8 year old child. We prefer rural or coastal areas - is there anywhere in the UK where we could get a detached house in a nice area in budget? TIA

Great budget, a few will come on here to recommend Northumberland for the gorgeous beaches. I would also consider parts of the Wirral and north of Liverpool for being near the coast but close to a big city for shopping/days out etc. Good luck with your new start.

Villages around Lancaster are lovely. You definitely need to give a bit more information to help narrow your search...

Lancaster has Grammar Schools so great if you expect the DC to be academic. It's on the west coast mainline but the last train from Manchester is only 10.15pm.

What do you need/want from your nearest town? What about public transport when the DC are teens. What other interests do you have?

You could get a lovely house in Scotland for that. My favourite coastal area is the East Neuk of Fife (which has a Cornish vibe with lots of artists in beautiful fishing villages). You wouldn’t get as much for your budget there as you would, say, around Ayr on the West Coast of Scotland, but it’s so pretty. It’s not very racially diverse, though, so that’s something to think about. Closer to Edinburgh are Portobello and Musselburgh, which are also lovely and a bit more multicultural.

Its so hard to put a pin in a map with decisions like this, we have had similar conversations- do we stay near family who live in expensive/ busy surrey? Do we move move more into town so kiddies are close to others? We have set up home in Scottish Borders, 50 minutes On the train line from Edinburgh. It IS BEAUTIFUL. I live in the tweed valley, you can swim in the river, there are lochs to sail in, you can walk for miles without passing a road. The people are very friendly and there are nice coffee shops and restaurants- albeit more spread out. You could pick up a 4/5 bedroom finished house with 2acres of land for 350,000... the nicest towns are peebles and Melrose. We are further from Edinburgh that I would like , thought i throw the Scottish borders into the ring!!

I'd love to love in Scotland but every time I've been somewhere other than Edinburgh I'm eaten alive by midges! Is there a midge map so I can avoid the blighters?

It is generally said that the east and south-east of Scotland is less troubled by midges than the west or the far north.
This is because:
Midges breed in wet peaty land; there is more of this in the west and far north.
They can't fly in high winds, such as sea-breezes. The east coast is famously bracing.
Strong sunlight deters them. The west is damper, cloudier, mistier than the east.
There are more trees in the west; midges swarm in their shade.

Cities are usually midge free.

This map shows areas where midges are most prevalent:
scotland-species.nbnatlas.org/species/NBNSYS0000027211