Hastings?

[Grainedesesame]

Can I start another thread on Hastings? We have a budget of 600k for a 3-4 - need to commute to London a couple times a week. We like Hastings but keep hearing about the roughness and school is a big question mark. What’s Hastings really like as a town for raising kids? Thanks for the feedback.

I daresay the "Hastings-is-a-total-dump-full-of-nothing-but-drug-users" brigade will be along soon to tell you what a total hell hole Hastings is and not to come anywhere near. However. We moved down to the area from a chocolate box village in the home counties a few years ago. We found the village we came down from to be snooty and extremely cliquey. In contrast, Hastings is not pretty, and there are most definitely some very rough patches, but we much prefer living here to where we were. Having the sea on the doorstep is lovely. The area is quite arty and there's always tonnes to do. One of my DC is very involved in drama and there are good opportunities for that locally. Friends' DC are very involved in local sports clubs. We live in a quiet area on the edge on the town and it's very peaceful and pleasant. You should get a very nice 3-4 bedroom house for your budget. I will say though that the local state schools are not brilliant. We are in the independent sector where there are a few extremely good schools. For secondary, a lot of children go for Claverham (in Battle) or Robertsbridge (in the nearby village Robertsbridge) as they have better reputations than the Hastings schools, however getting into these two schools from Hastings isn't guaranteed as they're out of catchment. Feel free to ask me any questions - we've been down here nearly 8 years now and will never go back to the home counties!

I live in Bexhill so know hastings pretty well. There is absolutely no chance I'd be sending my kids to any hastings/at Leonard's schools, especially secondary schools, if I live there.

Reports of constant bullying, police having to be called regularly, knife incidents.

As for living there, it entirely depends on where. There are some incredibly rough areas mixed in with some very nice areas.

Bexhill on the other hand is lovely and a safe place to raise kids.

Be certain you are only commuting to London twice a week before you commit.

Great budget for Hastings, but not an area I would want to live in or raise my family. Have you visited OP?

Recommend just outside like robertsbridge, hailsham, rye, much much nicer. Hastings has ‘gone arty’ in last decade but it also really hasn’t. I wouldn’t, personally having kept a close eye from brighton over last 20 years. It takes a long time to turn around outcomes in an area. Maybe if you’re on your own but not with kids.

Thank you all for you input! I will let you know what we decide!

We moved to st Leonard's on sea from Sevenaoks 3 yrs ago and we Iove it here. One child at colleague and other at secondary school in Rye. There are rough bits but that's the same for any area and some secondary schools are worse than others, again same as other areas.
You get a lot more house for your money and so many beaches on the doorstep.

According to statistics, the highest number of registered sex offenders and heroin addicts are in Hastings...it does have a seedy side...haven't been for years...could have all changed.

I’d happily buy (if we had the spare cash!) a weekend property in the Old Town. I wouldn’t want to live in Hastings all year round though. We live in Kent now but used to live very near Hastings and still visit the area regularly. The old town and area around Alexandra Park have lovely and relatively low priced properties but as a whole, Hastings is a pretty deprived area (St Leonard’s even more so). I know that no town is free of drug or homelessness problems - however, these really are more apparent in the central part of town of a day or evening than you’d necessarily see elsewhere. PPs have mentioned the lack of good schools - if you stayed State then yes Claverham and RCC are options, Claverham less so than RCC (it has a pretty tight catchment) but there are no guarantees of getting into either and if new building projects go ahead in both villages then places will become scarcer.

As a town to live in, Hastings doesn’t have great amenities. It’s not somewhere to go shopping unless you want to go to Primark or the one or two boho/retro boutiques in the old town. Outside the old town, there isn’t much in the way of good places to eat out. The seafront comes alive with tourists in the summer (and really really crowded) but in the winter it’s bleak, grey and bloody cold!

I used to do the London commute from Robertsbridge. That was quite a journey and Hastings is farther on still. The train service isn’t that frequent if you miss your morning train. There are frequent issues on the train line (particularly around Wadhurst). It would be a long journey even a couple of days a week.

Personally with £600K I’d look at Battle, Robertsbridge, Etchinghan, Bodiam and Burwash. All a short drive from the sea. They are all popular choices for people looking to make the move from London.

Went to a wedding in Bexhill-on-Sea (which was nice)a couple of years ago, but booked a hotel on the front at Hastings.

I could've believe how run down and depressing the front was. We stayed too nights, on the 2nd/non wedding night we had a couple of drinks and were heading into town. Barman warned us thst the town has a lot of crime and violence and even joked "the tide was even afraid to come in", we never witnessed any, but I wouldn't buy there as its a "has been" town and very run down.

I never witnessed and crime and violence in Hastings so I think your barman was exaggerating a bit maybe! People frequently out of their skull yes. Dealing yes.

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No idea why Hastings is so attractive to folks moving out of london. Have you been there and spent any decent amount of time? Property nice but it’s really not much of a destination to move out of london for.