Living within one hour of Cardiff

[Themostwonderfultimeoftheyear]

We currently live in Newport but plan to move within the next 18mo to 2 years. DH needs to be within an hour of Cardiff for work and needs to be able to get to London fairly easily on occasion.

We have a 5yo DS so don't want to be too remote.

Where if you could live anywhere within an hour of Cardiff would you live? We love Monmouthshire but I worry it wouldn't be great for a teen. I feel that there are probably some areas around Cardiff which are lovely but which I know nothing about as didn't grow up in South Wales.

Pm me if you want more information on Chepstow and the surrounding area 👍

Thanks gym, we can go up to £450k if the right house and location and we could get a 3 bed if there was a small room downstairs for DH to have as a study so a bit of leeway :)

Thanks Jolly. Will have a chat with DH and might have more questions after that :)

@TitsOot4Xmas

Apologies, it’s 6 minutes by car

Don't do cowbridge, it's not on a train line and it's expensive. North Cardiff is lovely. Budget might be an issue. There are loads of lovely Welsh schools in Cardiff.

Dolau school in Llanharan is an excellent welsh school and Brynna is in the catchment for Y Pant secondary school in pontyclun which is also rated as excellent.

Bristol. In a heartbeat

Thanks for the info on schools. Definitely think that that probably needs to be the starting point, find all the good Welsh medium schools and then work out from there.

We lived in Bristol before DS was born spring and it is fab but DS is in a Welsh medium school so we have committed to Wales at least until he leaves school. One plus of Chepstow though is the proximity to Bristol as we do enjoy day trips there.

Pen y lan cardiff is also very popular with families and the Welsh schooling in particular is very popular. This is partly because of placement of pen y lan on edge of English school catchment. Not much for sale, things get snapped up but this is fairly typical.
There are others I've seen already extended that must not be on rightmove. Ysgol Berllan is the primary and Bro Edern the secondary.

www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/77642109

As someone who did a Cardiff to Bristol commute for several years I wouldn’t recommend it for that reason, the M4 is a nightmare. It wasn’t unusual for me to take 2-3 hours to get home from work on a Friday.

Nothing against Bristol, it’s lovely albeit stupidly expensive propertywise.

Ysgol y Wern in north Cardiff also well regarded.. but pretty much all of the Welsh schools are.

[quote Alwaysraining2]@TitsOot4Xmas

Apologies, it’s 6 minutes by car[/quote]
Awwww. I was about to fire up the Delorean.

I may not be 100% correct but I think Abergavenny's closest Welsh secondary school is Yahoo Gyfyn Gwynllyw in Trevethin which is pretty bad. They are building a new 3-16 (possibly -18?) provision there now as well but I can't imagine it will improve the standards a great deal.

If you're looking for Welsh language education then I think I'd seriously consider Radyr, Creigiau, Pentyrch and maybe Gwaelod y Garth as they're in the catchment for Plasmawr and maybe Glantaf as well. There's also lots of new housing along the Cardiff - Llantrisant road. Radyr has the best rail links.

Barry has a Welsh school and is cheap (and getting a makeover). Also good rail links. There's a Welsh school at Cymmer in Porth and Rhydyfelin in Pontypridd: Llanharry sort of close to the Vale.

I agree Cowbridge may be slightly beyond your price range.

If you end up travelling into Cardiff by road , please don't underestimate the traffic.

You can't really go wrong in South Wales - there's something to suit all tastes and budgets.

And by Yahoo I mean Ysgol, my autocorrect is obviously racist

Crickhowell is lovely. Or Abergavenny. I love the other side of the Beacons and I sometimes wish I'd gone down that way as it would have given me so many more commuting options.

Really handy to have all the tips about the schools, thank you. Monmouthshire does seem to be lacking in Welsh medium education whereas Cardiff is strong.

DH will be working from home 60-70% of the time even post Covid do will only have to commute into Cardiff 1 or 2 days a week and he is happy to deal with traffic when it isn't every day.

There's no welsh medium secondary schools near Chepstow, Newport Duffryn would be the nearest I imagine

Thanks jolly. Awful lot to think over when a child is involved. Think we need to go for convenience for the next 15 years or so and then we can get a rural bolthole as DH wants

Rhydyfelin in Pontypridd

Not any more. It’s now the 3-16 Garth Olwg in Church Village.

If you want welsh medium secondary I agree that Cardiff is really your only option as the secondary options are excellent and they really are not anywhere else within an hour of Cardiff.

@lockdownbreakdown

If you want welsh medium secondary I agree that Cardiff is really your only option as the secondary options are excellent and they really are not anywhere else within an hour of Cardiff.

I’m not sure that’s true. Depends what you want from a school, I guess.

i don’t think you’ll get what you want for £450k in cowbridge, our 2/3 bed is worth that much. if you would do the work yourself you might get something for £400k ish and be able to do an extension? cowbridge is nice, but lots of the people here don’t like change, so new supermarkets, housing developments etc all get petitions to try and stop them. not really my style. bonvilston and st nicholas are nice too, no shops though. dinas powys is nice, the west end of barry is lovely, llantwit major is also lovely and less expensive than cowbridge :) the welsh primary in cowbridge is under subscribed and covers a wide area of the rural vale. if you go for cardiff i would check out WM schools first as some of the nicer areas are in the catchement of dodgy location schools.

also there is a WM secondary in the vale and it has a very good reputation. there are 3 in cardifd but they are constantly changing the catchments (not done by feeder schools necessarily).

Have you considered Caerphilly or Ystrad Mynach. Some amazing houses for your money and Welsh primaries as well as Cwm Rhymney secondary.