leytonstone/walthamstow/streatham? best family area?

[ginandtonic84]

Currently having to move out of our rental and considering buying our first place together. Been trying to figure out which areas are the nicest to live in for a family. Have a two-year old so will need to think about school and community feel etc. From the few searches that I've done on MN people seem to say both good and bad things about all these places, but our budget is around 650-700 and are trying to weigh up the pros and cons of each of these places. Would anyone have any advice?

We moved from Walthamstow to Leytonstone in 2014. Absolutely loved Walthamstow, but where we are in Leytonstone is just lovely. We are in the Bushwood area, it's conservation, backs on to Epping Forest. It also means we are in the catchment area for lots of Redbridge schools, DS1 will start school in Wanstead in September.

Preferred the buzz of Walthamstow, Leytonstone is a lot less edgy and less places to eat. We tend to drive to Hackney or walk to Wanstead for decent food - but there are nice gems to be found.

Where we were in Walthamstow (Lloyd Park) it was about a 15 minute walk to the tube, and parking was hellish. We are now a 5 minute walk from the station. Although I miss the Victoria Line a lot.

Walthamstow has great connections with central London, but not necessarily with the rest of east London, for example if I had to go to my parents house in Ilford, I needed to either get three buses or walk to the station, get the main line to Liverpool Street and the tube back out (this was before Uber!).

ah perfect, thank you so much for replying. Which of the two would you recommend if thinking safety, schools, community, facilities? I know bit fo Walthamstow are lovely - is Leytonstone the same?

Have you thought of North Chingford or Highams Park? Both very family friendly and much safer than most parts of London. North Chingford in particular is great for families, has a small soft play, arts and crafts cafe, library, park, forest surrounding it...

@ginandtonic84 I feel much safer in Leytonstone than I ever did in Walthamstow.

There are less pubs and bars so less people around at night time walking back from the station. I'm London born and bred so not much really shocks me, it's just the norm.

Our area of Walthamstow was classed as one of the nicer ones, after Walthamstow Village but we still lived opposite a brothel and the shop next to our flat had an armed raid.

Though this may be similar at the other end of Leytonstone towards Leyton/Stratford. I'm sure where I am has it's fair share of trouble too though, I just haven't noticed anywhere near as much.

Schools wise, we moved out of Walthamstow just before I fell pregnant with DS1 so can't really comment. Schools around here seem good, where we are is in the catchment for four or five outstanding schools.

One of the schools, Aldersbrook has a forest school that it runs in Wanstead park.

My mum works in a secondary school in Walthamstow and loves it, the kids are kind and there are no major issues.

Being so close to the flats/Epping Forest/Hollow Ponds/Wanstead Park is fantastic. We are out and about a lot more now than we were in Walthamstow although we loved the William Morris Gallery and Lloyd Park. The Feel Good Centre is great, has lovely pools, soft play etc but for sports facilities we go to the Olympic park now mostly, I prefer it to Leytonstone Leisure Centre.

For a family I prefer Leytonstone. Everyone on our road says hello to each other, yard sales once or twice a year, lovely friendly local pub that serves great food.

Upper Leytonstone area is very nice.

Hi OP, I'm also in Bushwood, Leytonstone (waves to @BillyAndTheSillies) so will try to give a balanced view
Pros:

• 2 mins walk to Bush Wood/Wanstead flats, also close to Hollow Ponds etc. This is what I love most about it!
• 10 mins walk to central line
• really friendly neighbourhood
• excellent rated primary school (although Davies Lane, the nearest one, hasn't been inspected for a number of years so maybe do more research into what that's actually like now)
• clean air (there's been a big push by the council to reduce driving and increase cycling and walking which seems to have worked, at least round here)
• I don't know the stats but the area feels safe and doesn't have much crime compared to many places (there was a spate of bike thefts recently, but other than that I'm not aware of much crime)
• the high street has everything you want in terms of shops. If you need clothes or a department store then there's Westfield 2 stops away

Cons

• the central line in summer! It gets you where you're going quickly but it is not pleasant!
• the high street is a bit tatty
• not so many restaurants etc as Walthamstow, although the ones we do have are very good. Unfortunately a few of the best coffee shops have closed in the last few years I guess we'll have to see what happens after covid as I suspect there will be a lot of turnover.

Ultimately we chose here over Walthamstow as we like being super close to open spaces and also within 10 mins walk of the tube.

Any specific questions feel free to ask - you mentioned facilities but I'm not sure what you mean exactly.. No cinema, sadly. I think there's a swimming pool but I've never been as I hate swimming!

NB the above is my experience of living in Bushwood, obvs. Upper leytonstone is also really nice although you have to walk over the A12 bridge to get the the high street. Parts of the area around Cann Hall road are also supposed to be nice (and cheaper than Bushwood/Upper Leytonstone) but more of a trek from the main bit of the high street/tube obvs. I've never lived there so can't comment much.

Wow - so many helpful tips - thank you. Will have to go and check Leytonstone out! At this stage, we only need a two-bed and am hoping that we havent been completely priced out of everywhere. I really dont know how people can have budgets of 1.2m their salaries must be enormous.

In terms of facilities I just meant stuff for DS to do. We are currently livng in zone1 and pre-Covid used to take him to things all the time.

Would you say that it is easy to make new friends and settle into the area? All of our friends are moving further out so having our own community would be great, though this is London i know.

Hey neighbour @E11Egret !

Have found everyone really friendly in Leytonstone, Walthamstow was a lot more transient as lots of renters trying out the area. I've made new friends through NCT 4/5 years ago and nursery parties.

It definitely won't match up with zone 1 in terms of things to do but we always manage to fill our time with DS1, we go to the Discovery Centre in Stratford locally quite a bit. The Olympic Park is awesome, great playgrounds, under usual circumstances there's lots of family events at Victoria Park, Museum of Childhood is great, some of the canal walks from Stratford, hollow ponds is a boating lake, soft play wise we drive to Owls in Fairlop - which also has a really good lake and country park, farmers market once a month in Wanstead on a Sunday is really lovely. Liverpool Street is only 15 minutes on the tube for Shoreditch etc.

The park local to us, Henry Reynolds Gardens is really popular and I've known people to travel from South Woodford to visit.

@ginandtonic84 I'd recommend speaking to Stow Brothers estate agents, they look after our property in Walthamstow and have just opened an office in Wanstead. They're a really lovely bunch as far as estate agents go and know the local area really well.

When we moved out of zone 1, one of our deal breakers for a new area was "If it's too late to pop into 'town' after 2pm, then it's too far out'. Certainly not the case with Leytonstone (or Walthamstow). One of the best things about living here is that the centre of London is actually very near and convenient - but can be kept at 'arms length' (if you see what I mean.) We're big museum and gallery visitors so we're in and out of 'town' a lot (or we were :-/ ).

When we got here 20+ years ago the bit we live in (Cann Hall) was very transient and quite unloved. It's much more settled now. I wouldn't be so shallow to judge an area by the decor of its houses, but there's a lot of Farrow and Balling and sash windowing going on nowadays. Two or three of our elderly neighbours have lived here all their lives and have shared their joy about young families moving in permanently and bringing some 'life' back to the area. One of our neighbouring streets even got funding for everyone to get a flower pot of geraniums for their bay window ledge. It's a very friendly area. Our local primary, Jenny Hammond is also very, very good.

We've also go an absolutely brilliant Safer Neighbourhoods police team who really do care about the area.

Definitely easy to make friends - we've met lots of people through the residents association and linked social/hobby groups.

I can't comment so much on things to do with children as mine is still too tiny. The one thing I have had my eye on is the forest school sessions at the Quaker Meeting House as I'd really like her to grow up appreciating the forest. Tbh I had no idea that Aldersbrook primary had it's own forest school so I'll look into that - thanks @BillyAndTheSillies

Might see you there @E11Egret !! Booked DS2 who turns 1 in September on to the Tuesday AM forest school from November after he turns 1 in September.

Agree on the residents association, had forgotten about that. BARA's a lovely group, it's a shame there won't be a summer festival this year.