Moving out of London - where to?

[bertiebadger]

DH and I currently live in a small 2 bed flat in very central London with a baby on the way. We are trying to shortlist places that we might like to move to in a year or so. Budget hopefully 500-600k or so.
DH grew up in beautiful rural Scotland and is craving more green space. I grew up in north London and love our friends, the community and the general feel. We're both liberal sorts of people.
Key points for us would be:

1. Good commute to London (city area, DH to Canary Wharf or city)
2. Feeling of space and greenery - decent sized house and garden and green space around
3. Fun young families - not too much Daily Mail!

I'd be very grateful for any thoughts!

Epsom downs. Its beautiful. There's so much green, which was a must for me with two kids. I'm originally from the East End of London & living here is like a difreren't life. 😊

Fellow teacher here ( waves ) I loved my old job, but teaching down here has definite advantages - so much nature on offer for out of school learning for a start; beach school and lots of lovely free or heavily subsidised art projects (we have an annual Charivari carnival which all schools get involved with and is amazing, have never seen anything quite like it, an art triennial and a bi-annual light festival), lots of local safari parks and Museums, castles and we do still head up to London once or twice a year are just a few that pop into my head. It really is quite special! Anyway, I just popped back to say that if you did investigate further We Love Folkestone and Newbie Parents in Folkestone are both good places to get a feel for the area and what it has to offer....

Suffolk.

I noticed that the black, rather posh MP for H&H has been on the media a lot since the BLM protests. Don't know if by accident or design. Actually before, he rather feebly and stutteringly supported Cummings so, as Desiringonlychild says, you can get a mix of attitudes.
Wycombe has had a BAME population for a long time. Baker was actually the only MP outside a big city who had a swing to Labour against him. (Sorry OP bit irrelevant to your search!)

Agree with @Lonelycrab - Coulsdon, Kenley, Sanderstead, Warlingham, Woldingham (especially gorgeous) are all lovely with easy access to countryside and London. I live in Kenley and we're a 5 min walk to a massive woodland. It's 30-35 minutes to London Bridge or 35-40 minutes to Victoria.

Cambridge is very diverse and liberal- highest remain vote in the country I think! You could get a 4 bed with that budget- not a massive one though. 48 minutes into kings cross. Other villages on trainline are great shelford and stapleford though they go towards Liverpool st.

Look at Sevenoaks and the surrounding areas such as Eynsford . All easily commutable and quick to London but also lovely areas

We originally wanted Sevenoaks but wasn't getting much more for our money so we looked at Longfield/New Barn/Hartley and Meopham due to Longfield and Meopham stations for our commutes. Lovely areas surrounded by countryside and we are minutes walk from the station. Absolutely love it here. We've had so many walks during lockdown that are all local or a few minutes drive. Plus you are right on the A2 and M25 and M20 and Ebbsfleet or th high speed and Eurostar.

Surely Cambridge is the best option for liberal-minded Remain type community values plus quick commute and amazing countryside?

Cambridge is amazing but I'm not sure the commute is really all that quick sadly

@ListenToIronMaidenBaby

Look at Sevenoaks and the surrounding areas such as Eynsford . All easily commutable and quick to London but also lovely areas

We originally wanted Sevenoaks but wasn't getting much more for our money so we looked at Longfield/New Barn/Hartley and Meopham due to Longfield and Meopham stations for our commutes. Lovely areas surrounded by countryside and we are minutes walk from the station. Absolutely love it here. We've had so many walks during lockdown that are all local or a few minutes drive. Plus you are right on the A2 and M25 and M20 and Ebbsfleet or th high speed and Eurostar.

You can't go wrong with Kent. Friendliest people in the country, great transport links and scenery.

I am north Essex/Suffolk borders. Outside Colchester.
Very commutable and we are surrounded by miles of fields. It's glorious here.

Just some clarification from another perspective.

I have family who live in Cambridge, it is the students not the long term residents who swing the vote so don't take the voting record as what it is like to live there long term. Similar with Canterbury.

Kent is mostly friendly, but there are industrial parts that are not so pretty and parts that are pure Daily Mail territory and remind you where the vocabulary of Chav (Chatham Average) came from. There have also been parts that have higher incidents of Coronavirus and the press have had to write lots of stories about it not being the result of immigrants but that has not stopped a lot of anti-immigrant sentiment, which is less than friendly. Of course this is not all negative about Kent, I live near the borders and find most very friendly and kind.

Vast swathes of Kent are not near a train station and the cost of driving to a train station and then parking can add £1500+ a year to an already pricey season ticket. It is £8 per day to park at Sevenoaks station and there is a waiting list for season tickets.

Kent is a generally stressful place to live when you have a child in y5 as most parents are tutoring their children for grammar as it is a full grammar county and whilst the grammars, catholic or Anglican schools are great, the non-grammars and on-religious schools (secondary moderns) are on the most part worse than the average comprehensive.

Kent is a big place with 1.5m residents (as many people as 5-6 London boroughs over a much bigger area) so generalising isn’t that helpful. There’s definitely good options to be had but where might suit will depend on your budget, how often you’ll need to be in town and countryside vs. coast vs. facilities.

Winchester, Alresford or Alton.

I wouldn't recommend Alton. A very "backwards" feeling step if moving from London, in terms of diversity and culture. At the end of the trainline and quite a parochial (and unexciting) and slightly depressing town.

Winchester is posh and white but has a bit more going for it.

Also, OP, not sure on your preferred commute length but trains from Cambridge are only 50 minutes. Tunbridge Wells is 46 minutes.
Alton would be 1hr 15 mins

I really wouldn't judge a town by it's local Facebook group. I'm mid-20s and don't even have Facebook, and if I did, I would never sign up for these groups as I associate them with middle-aged curtain twitchers who post about dodgy white vans or kids playing out on their own.

I would recommend Hitchin, it's like the dream place to live, just depends how good your commute would be.

@BeijingBikini The middle aged curtain twitchers in my London suburb seem a lot nicer though! While the middle aged curtain twitchers in hitchin seemed to spout a lot of racist views. I think its because they can get away with saying racist stuff, there is a sikh community in hitchin but its definitely not as diverse as London. Therefore, racist people feel a lot braver to air their prejudices, which is a problem for BAME people moving out of London. I mean, one thing that I have noticed is that almost all the people extolling the virtues of the countryside are white as they don't encounter the same problems.

In that hitchin facebook group, i saw so many white middle aged people ganging up to make fun of a black lady and there weren't many other black people to defend her. Or even that many BAME people. You can imagine how that translates in everyday life- being the only muslim kid in school, the only black kid in school. Hitchin is probably quite good compared to other Home Counties towns but it is still a far cry from London.

@Desiringonlychild I think all this Hitchin-bashing is really unnecessary. I'm sorry reading that fb convo has affected you so much but personally I've never seen anything like that in the fb groups and I find the town incredibly friendly and diverse. I sure the vast majority of people you'd ask would say the same.

Yes it's not as diverse as London but there is no way that OP's children would be the only black or Muslim students in the school (if that is even relevant - I'm not sure it is?!)

It's not meaningful to compare any commuter town to the diversity of London because nowhere in the world is as diverse as London. & this thread is about moving out of London anyway so let's keep it relevant.

@IlanaWexler Well the OP was concerned about the political inclinations/social attitudes of the Home Counties towns. As someone with more liberal political views, I would hate to live in a place where black people and muslims are treated as outsiders even if I am neither black or muslim. Those aren't my values. Of course, I accept that most people are probably fine with living in a place with a less inclusive ethos, as long as it doesn't affect them, and that is their prerogative.

I wasn't really bashing hitchin. I was saying that Hitchin might not be the most friendly place for a BAME person. For some people, that might even be a perk; some people might like to move to a town with more white faces, and i guess thats their choice, right? I just thought OP wasn't that sort of person

@Desiringonlychild You're not BAME and you don't live in Hitchin, so what gives you the authority to speak about what it's like for a BAME person to live there?

@IlanaWexler Actually I am BAME. When Covid 19 first hit the UK, I went to Herts for a day trip and people kept whispering about me and making jokes about bats. I was so relieved to come back to London!

@IlanaWexler as in having loud audible conversations about how i had coronavirus. oh do you know chinese people eat bat soup hahhaha

My Chinese best friend had said the worst racism she's had towards her was in Hackney, from black people. I don't think anywhere is free of it unfortunately.

OMG please can the white people stop shutting down people's actual experiences of racism in some country towns? Just because you've never witnessed it, or just because your local Facebook page seems lovely doesn't mean it doesn't exist or isn't very real. You've been privileged enough to be shielded from it or blinded to it.

Whataboutery isn't helpful either (eg "my BAME friend was once racially insulted in Hackney").