Fife/Angus Scotland Vs Home Counties England - to move or not to move

[InsertSassyUsernameHere]

Advice needed please.

I'm English, from the south of England.
My partner is from the northern isles of Scotland, and we live an hour north of Edinburgh.

I do not like it. I miss being down south, I miss being close enough to London to just hop on the train and see the sights etc.
I really miss the weather. It's so much colder, wetter and windier up here than I imagined.

We have been here for several years, and our children (10, seven) have been here most of their lives, so are settled in various activities (cubs, brownies, swimming etc). They are home educated, so no ties to school. My children both feel the weather too, and would be happy to move south.

My husband has finally said he'd look for a job down south. It has taken me YEARS of pushing to get him to even consider it, despite telling him I'm utterly miserable up here. But now, I worry about starting over with the kids re getting them into all the activities they like (waiting lists for various classes).
I also have big concerns about the state of the country, with the Tories destroying so much and at least we have some level of protection in Scotland with the SNP.
I worry about losing the free university options up here if we move.
But I also think the job opportunities are much better for my children down south, and they might not want to go to university up here, or even at all.

And if we bite the bullet and get a house down south, it will be worth more to them when they need a leg up when they buy their own properties. As it is, houses don't increase much up here, and I worry about not leaving them enough to help them.

If we move, we could only afford a small house with a small garden. Up here we could afford a nicer house, with a big garden (we moved in a rush, so are looking at moving anyway, to a better home. Whether that is in the same area and I accept my lot, or, we make the move, is the big dilemma.)

I feel torn.

What should be my key considerations?

I am NOT happy here, but, my children come first and I want what's best for their futures, but also their childhoods.

I certainly wouldn't stay in Scotland on the assumption that independence is coming any time soon or, if it does, Scotland will join the EU, or the situation with Uni fees will be the same by the time your kids leave school.

InsertSassyUsernameHere
Atalune, no, what do you mean? That I can't gift my children a lump sum for their deposit?

Correct. It’s been in the news a lot. Google it.

So I wouldn’t bank on that being something you’d be able to do for your children....

@InsertSassyUsernameHere

Which area around London are you thinking about?

I'm within an hour of central London and your budget would get something quite nice!

If you want commuter belt then you’ll pay for it- £600k for a 3 bed?

I'm about to sell my commuter belt 3 bed for half that. It's fairly lowly but I feel confident that there are naice 3 beds on the commuter belt for under £500k.

I'm also not sure you can bank on rising house prices in the SE as a reason for moving. This may not happen, particularly as wages are fairly stagnant and a recession underway.

Moving may be the right decision, but its important that you don't base your decision on things that end up not happening.

Squeaver, I'd love Brighton. It's not cheap though, is it! Any areas nearby you can recommend that have decent train connections to London?

Atalune, ok, thanks for info.

Shoes, anything Surrey, Sussex, Bucks, Hertfordshire, with fast trains to London, ideally a village.
Where is your commuter belt three bed?

In terms of what 500k gets you down south, I’m not much of an expert on commuter villages but here are examples:

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-78444583.html

DH has colleagues commuting from there and some other villages nearby. The train to St Pancras takes 50mins(?). Lovely coutryside and the coast. The village itself is attractive and desirable and complete with a Michelin restaurant. I’m not to sure about kids’ activities but DH’s friends love the lifestyle.

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-82082728.html

This, if you wanted to try outer London ‘villagey’ (pretty village centre and you can walk to farmland with sheep, horses, lavender fields etc but obvs more built up/busier than a real rural village). I live nearby and have a 2yo but the activities that older kids do and I’m aware of are: bouldering, golf, tennis, scouts, ballet, rugby, football, cricket, swimming, trampolining, gymnastics, cheerleading etc I’ve also seen independent Art and ceramics providers, independent music teachers + local museums organise different events and workshops etc.

Forgot Kent. Kent would be good too.

Thanks, JoJo. I like both of those. Folkestone feels a little bit too far from London though, abdvu expect the trainfare is £££.

Not sure about train fares from around Folkestone. But I also did wonder about Brighton and surrounds as the Green Party is big there. It has a reputation for being pricey but I imagine people would be able to advise on here.

Folkestone isn’t very nice!
Deal is much nicer.

Just a warning; if you move to the SE and your children choose to settle there as adults, you’ll need a BIG chunk of cash to help them in any meaningful way. Think about whether you have access to that, or you’d be happy to sell your house at that point to raise the cash.

Gosh property is expensive in the south.

I’m in a nice part of scotland and you can get a small three bed semi for £200

If you are really thinking long term about your children's future, one more factor to take into account is climate change:

• anywhere 'nice & warm' now will be too hot in the future; water shortages will be a problem too;
• cities with old victorian housing stock will find it especially difficult to deal with higher temperatures; city landscapes hold in heat;
• avoid anywhere at risk of coastal erosion and flooding;
• climate-refugee immigration will increase, pushing politically right-wing people further right;

I think if I was planning for the long term of my children's future, I'd be looking for some land where they could learn about permaculture, off-grid living, have good independent access to fresh water, away from city pollution, etc. Establishing roots in a part of the country which will be bearable climate-wise in 20 years time.

But in the short term, it sounds like you'll be much happier down south with access to London culture (whatever is left of London culture after the pandemic)

Scottish, with a Scottish husband, we live in the Home Counties. Would not move back. The prospects for our daughter are SO much better here. I don’t think I could handle the Scottish weather now.

OP, if you stay in Scotland and it goes independent, you and your DC will face an appalling economic recession. There will be mass unemployment, an unaffordable 25% deficit, savage austerity, cuts in services and benefits, and large tax rises. The SNP’s own economic advisors admit this.
The cost of setting up a new currency, central bank, army, navy, benefit system etc, plus exchange rate costs on all imports from England, while losing the Barnett formula subsidy from the UK is horrific.
Plus all Scots mortgages are paid in sterling to British lenders, but your salary will then be paid in Scottish groats. If the groat trades at 50p to the pound, your true mortgage cost will double.
If you have the chance to escape to southern England, I’d seize it now. I know businessmen who are buying up warehouse space in Northumberland, so they can move their companies out of Scotland.
RBS has already arranged to register as an English company in London, instead of in Edinburgh, as an independent Scotland can’t afford to underwrite its assets. We will lose all the corporation tax on every firm that does the same. It’s a disaster waiting to happen.
And why are you so anti Tory, when they willingly bailed out the whole of Scotland with a generous and immediate furlough scheme, despite the ingratitude and abuse of the SNP? I would love to move back to England, but sadly my DC are both in Edinburgh.

Hi Babdoc. It’s terrifying isn’t it? I can’t understand why support for independence is growing. The economics are horrific.

We work in Edinburgh. If our companies remain we would hope to commute from Berwick. There will be a huge exodus of higher tax paying talent and I bet this hasn’t been factored in.

I despair of my fellow scots who think it’s a good idea. Scotland has gone only backwards in the last decade in all sectors. I’m heartbroken.

In Scotland here and have exactly the same fears as Babdoc expressed. I am tied to job and care of elderly parents but would leave if I could.
And on the weather...i actually have the bloody heating on!!

To be honest, it sounds like your husband and children are happy where you are, but you're not. Not that you don't matter of course!

What are your children's friendships like? The 10 year old particularly I would expect has a few close friends s/he would find it hard to leave behind? Do you think it would be easy for them to make new friends (I can't imagine it being easy to fit into a new school at 10 particularly but maybe homeschool groups are different ?). Will you have more or less family close by if you move?

Also I don't really get why you think their prospects would be limited by a childhood in Scotland when presumably they can still move anywhere for uni etc when adults? Do you homeschool because you feel schools there are bad?

As for houses, I bet you get a much bigger, nicer house for 500k there than in the home counties, but whether the proximity to London would be worth the difference (and it's a huge difference) only you can decide (personally I would rather have the nicer house!)

cunning, I don't know that climate change will be that significant bin their time, let alone mine. 20 years, you reckon? In the meantime, we are cold and rained on. It's not something I'm dismissing, but it feels like a way off, and too long to be cold for.
You're correct to be concerned about the rise of the right-wingers, it's a serious concern to me, for sure.

nixen, can you elaborate please re your child's prospects, and why you wouldn't move back.

babdoc, the Tories are only out for themselves, they never do anything for the people if they think they can get away with it. They couldn't get away without furloughing people as they knew if they did not, people would revolt. Anything to keep the peasants down. They are corrupt, cheating, psychopaths.

The rest of your post does concern me, and i just don't know which way to go because of it. The future feels perilous.

You’re never both going to be happy at the same time.

I’ve never met anyone from the “nort isles” who didn’t have the sea in their blood and long to return once they’ve paid their dues south.

My dad married an English woman and she hated Scotland. They settled in England - but he was never happy. She died recently and I see my dad’s heart has never left the north and I’d be surprised if he still has an English postcode this time next year.

Btw not sure which Scottish tories you’ve dealt with who “do nothing for nobody”. Back in March they were the ones saying they’d fetch errands for anybody regardless of political affiliation. Last time I saw the snp around these parts they were dancing like children.

Tbh - if you had a job and spoke to real people and your children were at school - you might have a more realistic idea about life.