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!

@RavensNest I'm the one with "actual experience" of living here everyday. She had one bad experience in some random place in Herts and is generalising that to mean that the entire county is a terrible place for BAME people to live.

Yes but your actual experience is that of a white person. You do not have lived experience of being a Black person in Hitchen and so the best thing to do would be to accept others' experiences as they tell them, rather than leaping to defend your area and deny her story. Her experience is valid.

Also, she didn't comment that "the entire country is a terrible place for BAME people to live", so you are making a sweeping generalisation there for some reason.

(Although some BAME people might feel it is, but that's for another thread).

Bromley could surprise you. It is a large borough with a town centre and linked up network of smaller villages. Less urban than Greenwich, Lewisham, Southwark... but still with all the mod cons. When you're out in some of the nature reserves or parks (Scadbury in Chislehurst, which a pp already recommended), out at a country park (Lullingstone), walking the dog at Well Woods (West WIckham side) a drink in Keston pub you will hardly believe it's a London suburb. There's also all the green from the South Croydon side (e.g. Addington Hills).

Depending on which bit you are a quick drive and you're easily in the Sevenoaks green belt, with lovely towns like Eynsford or the villages around Ide Hill. Yes, Sevenoaks and Oxted surrounding villages are undisputably more rural and 'Kent' or 'Surrey'-esque - but you lose on the commute and train cost. Why not go for decent transport links and you'll still have quick access to the countryside. Compared to Greenwich, you'll still get more bang for buck house wise. Maybe have a day out with DH and drive around.

You do not have lived experience of being a Black person in Hitchen Neither does she!

& I said county, not country. She said the Home Counties are "a place where black people and muslims are treated as outsiders" based on nothing more than a fb post and a completely unrelated comment towards herself.

Yes but your actual experience is that of a white person. You do not have lived experience of being a Black person in Hitchen and so the best thing to do would be to accept others' experiences as they tell them, rather than leaping to defend your area and deny her story. Her experience is valid.

Her experience is that of a Londoner. She does not have lived experience of being in Hitchin and so the best thing for her to do would be to accept others experiences as they tell them. My experience is valid.

Being prejudiced against a whole area of the country is just ridiculous as being prejudiced against a whole ethnicity.

Wivenhoe in Essex - lovely, very liberal village on the waterfront, close to Essex Uni and Colchester. Good schools, lots of baby groups, good pubs, very very friendly.

Three whole posts to so vigorously and passionately deny that racism took place against the pp from anyone in Hitchen. White fragility laid bare.

No-one's denied it, conversely people have said it happens everywhere and isn't avoidable in one particular place. I've had xenophobic jokes made at me and lived in a very multicultural area at the time. Equally you cannot say the whole of Hertfordshire is racist based on an experience of one day in one place. Also it's spelled Hitchin.

@RavensNest I suggest you try a bit harder to read and understand what people actually write. No one is denying racism. We're calling someone out for a different type of prejudice. Or perhaps you think prejudice is fine as long as it's not racial?

@IlanaWexler people choose where they want to live based on how 'safe' they feel. Some people might choose to move to hitchin because they want their kids to grow up with less brown people around, most people in hitchin do not move to hitchin for such reasons. I am sure hitchin has plenty of lovely people but given that I would feel less safe there and constantly worry that people would spit at me in the streets and pull their eyes into slits, I am entitled to not want to move there. And unlike in my borough, there aren't that many Chinese people who would be there to help defend me.

For example, I am sure not all Americans are racist but I wouldn't think America is the best place for a black person to move to. America is a huge country and its not logical that every town and city is horrible for black people. But I just don't think it's wise. We are entitled to move to where we feel it's safest. Other BAME people can disagree but that's their prerogative.

@Desiringonlychild So which commuter town do you recommend instead? Because that's what this thread is about. If your whole point is "everywhere is racist except London" then I don't see how that's helpful for OP.

@IlanaWexler places like Watford, Brighton Are fine. Edge of London - high Barnet, harrow, Edgware. Orpington is fairly diverse too.

I would love Brighton but the commute is terrible. But if DH and I could wfh and future child got into Brighton college, I would gladly move there.

@Desiringonlychild Brighton is fab but too far to commute when you have kids.

We considered Watford and went to spend a weekend there, but it felt very rough to us - we saw a group of pre-teens attack an old man on the high street and decided we didn't want our son growing up with those sort of peers.

[quote IlanaWexler]@Desiringonlychild Brighton is fab but too far to commute when you have kids.

We considered Watford and went to spend a weekend there, but it felt very rough to us - we saw a group of pre-teens attack an old man on the high street and decided we didn't want our son growing up with those sort of peers. [/quote]
Watford is probably more like a typical London area than some of the outer boroughs.

@bertiebadger Sorry if we derailed your thread a little.

I found this site really helpful when we were deciding where to move to: www.findahood.com/locations

It shows you statistics on demographics, house prices, crime rates, etc. Much more useful than the subjective opinions of random strangers online haha.

Chingford area, but near Chingford Station is nice. Lots of open land. House prices are reasonable and 25 mins on the train to Liverpool Street.

There is an obvious problem at the heart of this thread: ethnic diversity is typically lower in 'pretty' place with lots of green. It'll even itself out eventually but it might take a couple of centuries. In the mean time the OP needs to make her own judgement about her own family's risk appetite for encountering more white privilege in their daily lives for the sake of a more rural domestic setting. Personally I am taking my cue from the fact that OP has described York - a place few would consider to be ethnically diverse - as 'lovely'.

Meanwhile back on topic, I know Herts fairly well, hope this list helps:

Watford is pretty rough and basically indistinguishable from London.

Bushey, nearby, is a bit more green but no cheaper than London.

St Alban's ('Snalbans') is posh and liberal and beautiful and has excellent commuting, but still quite a large city and very expensive.

Wheathampstead, nearby, is posh, liberal and small but I don't think has a train option.

Welwyn Garden City is fairly diverse and very green (in a 'planned landscape' sort of way) and the trains go either into Moorgate or KX. It's not too expensive either I think. Worth a look?

Hatfield is next stop in to London from Welwyn but my impression is that it's a bit rough TBH (happy to be corrected).

Hertford (where we live) is small, family-friendly, has excellent schools, walks on the doorstep, supermarkets, parks, sports amenities, theatre with lots of kid-friendly shows, restaurants / pubs, and two train options in to London (Moorgate and Liverpool St), and the house prices are way lower than Snalbans or Stortford. There are loads and loads and loads of young mums with little kids NCT should just buy the whole town and be done with it. However the trains are both only a bit less than an hour and you've then got to get to Canary Wharf (I did that for a while and hated it). And we have no shortage of tories I'm afraid. Our local FB group is definitely middle aged and a bit fretty but I haven't noticed any racism at all on it. Our builders were openly racist in my house a few years ago and I'm still fuming about it. £550 gets you something characterful with 3 beds or something spacious but more ordinary with 4 beds. www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-71038866.html is no more than 8 mins walk from the station and has one of my favourite walks on its doorstep - £535k.

Much the same applies to Ware, though (of course) I prefer Hertford :-).

Stevenage - don't even go there.

Stanstead Abbots has a bit of an 'other side of the track' vibe to it; some of it's white-van territory but the bit up the hill by Great Amwell church is very posh (and no doubt tory).

Roydon might be worth looking at - it's on the fast line down to Liverpool Street from Bishop's Stortford / Cambridge. Biggish village (two pubs), don't know about schools sorry, but lots of green space and your money will go further there.

HTH

Any nearer to that move @bertiebadger?

An odd thread to read I have to say!