What are the advantages of outside vs outer London?

[Rainboom]

I feel the archetypal draw of leaving London as I age and start to think about secondary schools, but for us it is hard due to jobs tied to London.

I browse through 'Life after London' Facebook posts and wonder if it's all cracked up to be? When I compare the house prices for many places (mostly SE kent Hampshire surrey etc) they are actually not offering that much more value vs outer fringes of London, where you still have the transport/TFL advantage.

When I look at school league tables, greater London has many good schools. Outside, you might have a few but then your are pretty limited in choice.

The house prices in towns 1.5-2 hours away arent cheap either! Many nice places have comparable prices to outer London.

Is it just because I'm limited to commuter land? We could try to get jobs in another city but then one of us would be stuck with no or min wage work.

Anyone share their real experience about moving out of London? Any regrets?

I guess I meant further down than Oxted, but places like Horley, Crawley, Hayward’s Heath are cheaper...maybe Burgess Hill. They are certainly cheaper than zone 6 or those areas bordering the M25 and within 30-40 mins commuting time like Oxted or Redhill or Dorking.

Horley, East Grinstead etc still aren’t cheap...but they are cheaper and as you go further south, as a general rule it is cheaper still...always exceptions, but as a general rule.

[quote Rainboom]@sarahb083 I eyed up purley! But is it in riddlesdown catchment? I thought you had to be nearer[/quote]

We're Sanderstead and we're definitely in catchment for Riddlesdown, plus the Sutton grammars.

I imagine the catchment will get bigger now that they've done away with the feeder schools, as they will have taken a lot of spaces.

Yes me! Left zone 2 and bought a house with a garden and bifold doors etc etc in Hertfordshire. We lasted 4 years and moved back.

We thought we wanted that lifestyle but didn't and missed so much about our London life. Plus we are now closed to The City for work. Not that it makes much of a difference now we are mostly WFH but.... We live here because we love what it has to offer, so many parks, galleries, museums, lido, walks along the river and so many free fun things to do. Compromise is less space but it it totally worth it.

Looking back I think suburban life is so very different to London life. I would think about what is it about London that you like and can you be ok not having that anymore.

We also didn't like having to drive everywhere for everything. Also we found that these towns that are getting bigger don't always have the infrastructure to support a rising population so rush hour was a nightmare.

Another issue was bad weather days. It doesn't stop you from doing a million things in London whereas outside of London it was either leisure centre, shopping centre or the big Tesco.

@Rainboom yes we're within the catchment - we're actually in Kenley, but most people haven't heard of Kenley so I tend to say Purley. Warlingham and Sanderstead are also lovely - both on a good train line and feel a bit more green.

I live in zone 5 (Petts Wood) and have better access to green space than my parents do - small town in Surrey. Some parts of the borough of Bromley feel rural, and where I am I can walk to woods and fields in 5 mins. House prices are probably a bit cheaper than the more desirable commuter towns.

If you need good transport links and want the financial benefit of being in an Oyster zone, I think outer London is a good shout.

It is never easy even when we moved to London in the 1980s (we couldn't afford Ealing even then in the 1980s !!!! so are a bit further out in zone 5) so I had all the commuting 2 hours a day even when up all night breastfeeding a baby - not fun for over 10 years but doable for the compromise and their father lived right near where we bought a tiny 3 bed terraced house.

I have stuck in zone 5 but started working from home in 1994 which has been good compromise - good private schools, can get to London for meetings where needed, not too far from Heathrow on the tube too big garden, detached house now.

I was just talking to one of my children about this issue who might move out in a few years' time as some of her friends have also done but not all. Schools tend to be the issue for most people and often decide the issue as well as work.

I am glad I stayed in outer London (zone 5 met line) but we certainly looked at Hertfordshire for a while - lovely villages out there and our older child went to Haberdashers in Herts. and we were constantly out there as our girls had a pony and then a horse each at stables near there so we had loads of commuting out there every week until they left for university.

Now I am settled here I do not think I would ever leave this house.

So sorry I cannot share an experience of moving out of London but loads of people do.l I worked with law firm partners who commuted in from places like Kent, Brighton even, Herts, Cambridge, Oxford. Tended to park the non working wife there in the country - every one of those examples I am thinking of was male. If you want a fairer better balance between husband and wife I would not move too far away from work.

Schools here in outer London are fine state and private - some people go to Watford Grammar (state - not a grammar despite its name) and other state schools or even commute at 6th form into London to specialist state schools. My sons bought in Chesham by the way - on the tube - just and booming at present as you can get a little house for £350k or less.

New scheme for house buyers wanting to borrow 95% may be coming out [[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-56218952][] which will help first time buyers for whom the issue has always been they might between 2 people on full time salaries save 5% of the purchase price but 10% is too much. The 95% home loan has often been the key to a first time buy.

Have a think about what life might be like when you have 14-18 year olds.

The advantage of greater London become significant as there will be a much more comprehensive set of bus and tube travel options that they can use independently to see friends, attend activities, etc. Also cycling is a lot more viable - some boroughs are well behind the times but in many, there have been big improvements in road layout for safer cycling.

Don't underestimate how poor public transport is almost everywhere outside of London. Some places may have a fast commuter line train into central London but your mid and older teens are more likely to need good local public transport options to get them to their friends and events. Your classic wealthy commuter town/village will be set up for people to drive everywhere locally and drive to the station to take a train into central London and this then makes teens very reliant on lifts from mum and dad.

There are plenty of excellent schools in London and some absolutely dire ones in the Home Counties so it's not a sure bet that you get better education options outside, esp if your kids are not a 100pc sure thing for grammar school. Public transport options also open up a much bigger range of school, education and training options for teens so for post-16 education, that might be very important - not all teens want to stay at the school you chose for them at 11 when they are 16.

Another vote here for ‘just in London’, like another poster I am in Petts Wood. Great community feel, lovely parks, recreation grounds, clubs, facilities, 22 mins to London Bridge and also direct trains to Victoria, Charing Cross, Blackfriars, Cannon St. quick drive too out into the country. 3 bed semi £600k.

Outstanding primary school Crofton and for secondary DD attends the grammar school nearby, Petts Wood seems to be in an ideal triangle of location local (Newstead, St Olaves), Kent and Bexley grammars. For non-selective secondary there is Darrick Wood (would need to be at Crofton end to get in), Ravens Wood for boys, but it is a bit tricky for non-selective girls if not in distance for Darrick.

I echo the teenage factor- if yours are nearing secondary age they want to be able to do things on their own, and unless you want to be spending your life being a taxi driver keep that in mind. And also what is there for them (and you) to do - gyms, pubs, cinemas, shops, cafes....
Most people I know who moved out 'to give the kids the lifestyle we had' forget that times have moved on, and things are pretty boring unless you have a network of friends nearby.
I'm moving back in and it's only affordability that's keeping me in zone 3.

Very good point about teenagers. I cant ever envisage it but it will obviously come and I do not want to be driving to the station myself let alone chauffering them all the time. The commuter market towns that have enough in terms of cinema big enough high st to entertain them are again, pricey.

With schools to consider on top of it all, it really is a minefield!

park the non working wife there in the country
Chuckling at that - so true at work with the guys

Chesham looks nice and surprising to see it has a tube - I'm not familiar about Bucks, is it like the Kent grammar system?

We moved from a flat in zone 2 to a house outside London but easily commutable.
At the time we both worked near the city and its actually just as quick to travel from where we are now (35-40 min by train) than on the tube from zone 2. (but more than twice the price!)
Where we moved the houses weren't massively cheaper than in London but in London we would have had a terrace house with no off street parking, and a tiny garden, and fewer options of extending. We bought a detached house that needed a lot of work but had a fairly big garden and potential to extend. I missed the busy-ness of London and having everything on the doorstep. It took a while to get used to the supermarket closing at say 8pm when we were used to a sainsburys local open til midnight!

also what is there for them (and you) to do - gyms, pubs, cinemas, shops, cafes....
What a strange comment. Do you think that these things only exist in London?

I'm a Londoner born and bred - until I was 33 I'd never lived outside zone 2 (except for three years at uni). We made the move out of London and haven't regretted it. DH's job is tied to London (mine isn't), so we're still in commuter belt (north of London). You're right it's pricey to buy property here, but you do get a garden etc which you wouldn't get in London for the same money. The local schools are great and you don't have to live around the corner to get a place. My DC who are now pre teen / teens are having a more 'innocent' childhood than I did in London (I'm not saying drugs don't exist outside London but they are less prevalent IME). It's true that I do end up driving my DC around a lot though!

when you look at school league tables you may well find that the further you drift from London the ropier they become (vast generalisation of course!), but I urge you to consider that the biggest factor in a child's success is their parents and what their homelife gives them in terms of aspiration and drive and opportunity. When we moved to Cornwall we definitely took a dive in the DC's schooling and yet they still did as well as they would have in London (full sweeps of A stars across GCSEs and A levels) and yet most of their contemporaries struggled to get Cs. I know this wasn't because of wholesale awful teaching; it was because of a more general lack of aspiration in families. Obviously there were outliers to this pattern, but what I'm saying is don't compare a school which has a cohort of families in profession/city type jobs with one whose families are rural workers for example.
We don't regret our move for a minute. We did it while the kids were at school and we made friends through being involved in their activities as well as our own. Wait till you retire and it's a lot harder I think.
Another thing is that (notwithstanding Covid) we actually do far more culturally here than we did in London. If there's a theatre going on (in a field, on a cliff top, in a pub, anywhere!) we make darned sure we go. in London we took it for granted that we could, but curiously never did!

and I should say that is not a judgement on those families. They are happy, they are (mostly) making a living. But the driven-ness that I saw in London families is not something I have seen anywhere else! And I guess a little probably rubbed off on us and got transported to the sticks!

I definitely noticed that on school league tables, even in southeast as u go from say outer boroughs to e.g. Sussex. Not to say there arent any good schools, but performance across a cohort visibly drops further out

@Macaronirabbit are you in a home county?

In some ways out here in the dormitory suburbs where even in the 1930s families lived with gardens having escaped the inner city and people leave for work (or did in non pandemic times) every day to commute in on the tube it is peaceful but you aren't in the lovely depths of the country nor right by things to do in inner London. So is it the worst or the best of all worlds?

House prices tend to be the biggest issue. All 5 of my children have bought a place in the last few years with my help, the final one last month. It seems to be a pretty pure free market- the higher the price the better the place, the closer to schools and London and work the higher the price etc Whether CV19 will change all that if office workers now only need to work in London say 2 days a week not 5 remains to be seen - it is a very interesting time indeed.

However if you are buying something expensive it is best to rent first in a possible area just in case you hate it as stamp duty still remains a big issue for higher value places in the SE.

(My Freudian slip above - their father lived right near... I meant worked right near (he lived with us) - we could have afforded a 1 bed flat in Ealing or a small 3 bed terraced with garden further out where we bought in zone 5 outer London ( close to met and pic. lines) so it made more sense one of us, their father, lived right by the house in case we had a childcare issue given that meant we had so much more space and a garden).

It's interesting you call it the dormitory suburbs. Probably precisely that in terms of less perceived "character", despite all the amenities it offers and proximity to central London, that theres a little anomaly in that zone 5 prices are actually a bit lower than zone 6 and some commuter towns with 30-45 min type trains. When I say lower it's still often well over 1m for roomy detatched with garden etc!

www.cbreresidential.com/uk/en-GB/content/zone-5-and-6-resurgence-popularity

Yes, although I think we (in my case) are almost at zone 6 if i go to the nearest tube station to the house but live in zone 5. The borough boundaries to 3 areas are at the end of our road..... We can use the met line, the picc line, the central if go a bit further and choice of 2 over ground routes, buses including night bus to London and all night tubes (although I have not checked the covid 19 timetables).

Also the dormitory has risen and roared..... so we are heaving with people in day time when normally it is silent as a mouse as they are all working from home and with children at home now.

Yes John Betjeman's poem sums this area up a bit today and in 1954...

Middlesex

Gaily into Ruislip Gardens
Runs the red electric train,
With a thousand Ta’s and Pardon’s
Daintily alights Elaine;
Hurries down the concrete station
With a frown of concentration,
Out into the outskirt’s edges
Where a few surviving hedges
Keep alive our lost Elysium – rural Middlesex again.

Well cut Windsmoor flapping lightly,
Jacqmar scarf of mauve and green
Hiding hair which, Friday nightly,
Delicately drowns in Drene;
Fair Elaine the bobby-soxer,
Fresh-complexioned with Innoxa,
Gains the garden – father’s hobby –
Hangs her Windsmoor in the lobby,
Settles down to sandwich supper and the television screen.

Gentle Brent, I used to know you
Wandering Wembley-wards at will,
Now what change your waters show you
In the meadowlands you fill!
Recollect the elm-trees misty
And the footpaths climbing twisty
Under cedar-shaded palings,
Low laburnum-leaned-on railings
Out of Northolt on and upward to the heights of Harrow hill.

Parish of enormous hayfields
Perivale stood all alone,
And from Greenford scent of mayfields
Most enticingly was blown
Over market gardens tidy,
Taverns for the bona fide,
Cockney singers, cockney shooters,
Murray Poshes, Lupin Pooters,
Long in Kensal Green and Highgate silent under soot and stone.

I wonder what longer term effect CV19 will have with the current as I call it donut situation of inner London - in the centre rents and house prices are dropping and the outer circle is not doing too badly.