Stockport

[LJones789]

Hi all, we're looking at moving to Stockport and am looking for a nice family area that's safe for me to walk the dog alone at night, lot's of green spaces and a village feel. I've looked at Marple but I believe the traffic to get into Manchester isn't great, Poynton is also nice but not sure about the others.

The traffic to Manchester from Stockport will be horrendous wherever you are…
I personally like Bramhall and Disley

Good rail service from Marple.

You'd be stone-cold mental to drive into Manchester from Stockport. It was horrendous when I was doing it 15 years ago and the situation hasn't improved. So I'd look for train (or Metrolink) links first and foremost.

Does it need to be Stockport? If you're after village feel, nice environs etc south of Manchester you could look at Didsbury, Chorlton, the Heatons or (somewhat carefully) Withington.

Oh no really, someone said they'd built a new bypass and it'd helped with the traffic? My Husband has to drive in due to making different journeys throughout the day

Do you mean the Mottram bypass? That's not really going to help for traffic going into Manchester.
The problem with these others places isn't just the journey TO Manchester getting out of the villages itself is a pain.

Gee Cross/Werneth Low (Hyde) is a nice area, often overlooked on MN. A lot easier to get onto the motorway and then on to Manchester instead of congested A-roads...

Sorry this is not helpful re Stockport but agree with the posters that say driving from stockport to Manchester is a big no from wherever you are. Didsbury is prob the best area if you need to drive to Manchester frequently-river mersey and fletcher moss great for dog walking. If you go towards east didsbury rather than village, the house prices are also cheaper (it's also only a 15 min drive from there to Stockport train station anyway and has tram links) . If I had to pick, Bramhall (maybe near Bramhall park) is probably the nicest area in Stockport without being too far from Manchester. Poynton is lovely/Disley as well but they're a bit further out.

Cheadle Hulme is a nice place for families. Trains to Manchester which take about 20 minutes. Really nice community and schools. Plenty of green spaces and increasing nice bars / restaurants. The precinct need doing up however.

The main route from Stockport into Manchester is down the A6. I do it every week, the traffic is terrible. There are other roads but they're not much better. One of my colleagues drives in from Chorlton, or Didsbury might not be too bad.

These threads are useless without a budget.

Also don't buy anywhere without doing a few trial runs if driving is an essential

Also.. plane noise??

The Heatons

I'd also look at The Heatons. Heaton Moor and Mersey are the nicest, some parts of Heaton Chapel are nice but I'd avoid Heaton Norris. They're between the A6 and A34 so it gives a couple of alternative routes to drive into Manchester. It's also close to the East Didsbury tram station. Bramhall and Cheadle Hulme are another option.

Thanks for the tip, may have to relook at other places then as driving is essential unfortunately. Will definitely check out the places you've mentioned. Thanks for responding

Other thing to (potentially) bear in mind — whether Manchester (and indeed Stockport) introduces a low emissions zone for cars.

One was planned for HGVs, vans and other commercial vehicles, but put on hold last year.

But given that so many other cities are now introducing them, and including cars in the restrictions, you'd be wise to assume that Manchester will put one in at some point. Worth doing a bit of reading around the LEZs in places like Birmingham, Bristol or Glasgow to see how they're going to work.

Northenden is another good place to look, if your budget won’t stretch to didsbury.

It's probably worth looking at Romiley because access to the M60 is ok but as many other posters without knowing your budget and requirements, it's very diff6to advise.

It's not useless for me, I'm just wanting an idea before we settle on a couple of areas to do more visits to.

When you say driving to Manchester, do you mean the city centre? And if so roughly where?

He doesn't want to be crossing the city as well as the commuter belt