Where to live between Liverpool and Manchester?

[confusednw]

Hi,

We are a young couple in our late twenties/early thirties looking to buy a house in the North West and currently researching places to live.

We will be commuting to Liverpool and Manchester city centers for work using public transport (Liverpool three times a week, Manchester once or twice a week).

Our budget is around ~£400k for a three-bed, with the potential to go a bit higher.

Ideally, the area would have some nice cafes, bars and restaurants plus some green space for weekend walks.

We are currently considering places like Urmston, Hartford/Northwich and Frodsham. We visited Stockton Heath and liked the feel, but found the journey via bus and train potentially problematic. In a perfect world, we would walk to the station for a direct train (< 1 hr journey) to work.

Are we missing other nice places to live that would be commutable to Liverpool and Manchester?

Chorley is terrible for getting to Liverpool though, especially as a non-driver.

Chester. I commuted to both Liverpool & Manchester easily.

Hoole is lovely and close to the station. It has lots of lovely cafes, bars, restaurants but also lots of beautiful greenery.

Lymm's lovely but how would the public transport bit work? Isn't there just buses?

As you don’t drive I’d go for Chester. The trains to both are frequent and pretty fast (45 minutes to liverpool and a hour to Manchester) there is lots to do but it’s a small city and you can get walk from one side to the other.

Chester is a good call.

@PaigeMatthews you say rude, I say truthful. It's a dump.

Chester is a terrible place to live if you rely on public transport and don't drive. There is next to no public transport unless you live in Blacon or maybe the Lache.

'next to no public transport'

Genuinely, given some of the other suggestions on this thread which have far worse public transport...

Agree with @TokyoSushi that WA5 area of Warrington is a great option in terms of easy trains to both cities. Not as nice as South Warrington/Lymm but much easie commue. And will get a nice house for your budget

Used to live in the area and now live in frodsham which we love, but although there are trains to both cities they take much longer and particularly to Liverpool not alwyas direct. So we'd have stayed in Warrington if we'd needed to consider regular train commutes

Yeah, it’s not great. And there’s no direct trains to Liverpool either.

I'd recommend Skelmersdale. Not far from Ormskirk but much cheaper

Agree!

There's a reason why Skem is cheaper 🙄😂

As others have said - the WA5 area of Warrington (where I live) is really easy to get into Manchester or Liverpool. Look up Great Sankey and Chapelford. Chapelford is newish estate and has it's own train station on the Manchester to Liverpool line. Other nice areas but with older housing stock which are very near and walking distance to the station are Great Sankey, Whittle Hall, maybe Penketh. There's plenty of green space and walking and cycling tracks around. Handy for supermarkets, motorway (junction 8 M62 about a mile or so away), trains. Stockton Heath and that side of Warrington is very nice, but you'll get a lot more for your money round here and it's still nice.

I’d choose Liverpool and commute to Manchester. Then only one person has a commute. Train is 50 mins, driving probably the same. I’d choose to live in woolton, childwall, mossley hill or Aigburth were you can get a small 3 bed with garden for £400k in a lovely area with good schools.

Direct train from Euxton or buckshaw

Stay well clear of skem, sorry, but it is awful.

Warrington does have its nice areas, we have family there , they live in Appleton Thorn which is quite nice and lymmn is nice as well. I would not live in/on chapleford, they say its quite rough and issues with gangs of kids of a nightime with antisocial behaviour, so told their kids to avoid at all costs.
There appeared to be alot of clusters of housing estates being built last time we were there, so lots of "new build" housing around the town so i would aim for the houses in the nice outskirts area with good bus routes to the town.

It may be worth picking a nice area in one of the cities so one of you commutes as there will be lots going on for you to do outside of work.

Harder to get to Manchester, you have to go to burscough , change station and then slooooow train. It’d take well over an hour

Ex Frodsham resident. Undoubtedly well positioned for both now the Runcorn loop opened.
but if you’re driving to Liverpool from anywhere south of Warrington you must factor in tolls.
Liverpool is only city in country I know of that you are met with tolls wherever you try to cross Mersey south of Warrington- even retrospective tolls now being applied to bridges that were toll free and years old ( the old Runcorn bridge)
made my blood boil when the greedy private investment model to fund new bridge did this- but that’s another story
This cost will apply to anything south of Mersey in whirral or Cheshire. Just bear in mind

but, both routes are quick from Frodsham, Helsby type area. Do not look at Runcorn or I’d say Widnes. Someone mentioned hale village but whilst village is ok the surrounding area is pretty bad in places, hale, Speke etc have some very rough parts.

Wtf! 😱😱

I passed through Widnes and Runcorn on the bus recently and was shocked – was pretty grim.

Passed through some really nice bits of Garston recently near Garston park and was pleasantly surprised – it was lovely! I’d had the impression it was a bit rough.

Lived in Frodsham for 12 years . I’m not sure about the posh bit either, I’m not posh- moved because school was good ( at time). I didn’t meet anyone living there that thought they were posh, I think folks from Liverpool think the Frodsham folks are posh…a bit urban myth. The scousers come out to Frodsham in evening, or on market day to buy cowards pies and think it’s a posh day out. Btw the market is full of crap imho.
high street shops struggle- it should be full of lovely little shops, it does have some but also has many many empty units and any independent shops open and shut very quickly. People go into Liverpool or Chester to shop.

The only good thing is that as a Frodsham resident I did a lot of my basic shopping in Runcorn and it’s very cheap! 🤷🏼‍♀️🤣

Chapelford is not rough at all . I live near it but not on it but I know loads of people who live in very nice houses on there. There's the odd issue with kids like there are in most places. I've not heard of any issues for absolutely ages. It's an estate with mainly £400k - 600k houses, so hardly a sink estate! There was an issue a few years ago with kids from outside the area being dropped off at the park (which is a lovely area at the center of Chapelford with community facilities for kids) with 6 packs and being left. I've not heard of this happening for ages. It was dealt with. I'm on the facebook groups for "posh" places like Stockton Heath and I see complaints on there about anti social behaviour as well. You will get that in most places at some time.

I read someone recommending Newton Le Willows - that strikes me as a nice place as well. Seems to have a nice villagey feel and nice high street.

Actually trains up to burscough aren’t bad, links with Mersey rail tend to be fine and run frequently.
but it’s still a hell of a trog from Aughton to Manchester by rail