Swindon/cricklade - advice appreciated!

[Mum2G]

Moving again!

dh accepting a new job in swindon, has anyone any reccomendations for nice villages near swindon, that have good mother and baby facilities, and good primary schools?

Cricklade has been reccommended - any good or bad areas around there that people know of?

Any other nice locations with good schools in or around Swindon?

TIA!

Malmsbury is lovely. My brother has just moved out of Corston, I used to love going over to see him. The drive over was lovely. We recently looked at a house in Crudwell which was nice but not for us.

Well Swindon is improving all the time. I've lived here for 18 months and haven't had any negative experiences yet. Dd1 goes to Orchid Vale Primary in the North Swindon area - it is good (better than the small village school she used to attend near Cirencester). But all the local North Swindon schools are seriously over-subscribed which is a major problem - so depending on the age of your children, this is a very important consideration. They are potentially opening a new primary school in Oakhurst (also in N Swindon) but not till Sept 09 if it happens.

Yes the houses are modern with generally small gardens, but imo they are very good value for money compared to Cotswolds area. The house I live in here would have cost about £150k more in the Cirencester area. There is a great deal of snobbery in this neck of the woods (as evidenced by this thread!!) hence house prices are severely inflated in so-called desirable areas.

I believe that the primary school in Cricklade had a poor ofsted not so long ago and was under special measures, but I may be wrong. Also no local secondary school (although there is private up to 13 I think) so you would have to travel to Cirencester or Bradon Forest. Personally I think Cricklade is boring. They have been threatening to close its leisure centre - not sure if this actually happened - but without that, you would have to travel for any activities. To Swindon maybe (God forbid!!) Swindon has many and varied leisure facilities and there are lots of very nice people there!

My 2nd dd has special needs and goes to a good special school (in Swindon!!) The support services here have been far better than I received in the Cirencester area. There is more council money to go round in Swindon and I do feel they are making a lot of effort to correct years of under-investment. Give it a chance!! (sorry for the rant!)

With all these Swindon/north wilts mums we should be able to organise a great meet up somewhere. What do you think?

Wow! Thanks for all the info, i certainly feel i have got a lot more to go on, rather than just what the estate egents have told me!

It was an estate agent that told me that cricklade had a good school, dh has worked out how to access ofsted reports, i take it these are good indicators?

We are going to be very busy checking all this out, will perhaps see some of you at meet ups in the future!

I would avoid the developments around North Swindon like the plague - no infrastructure to support them. Also there is new building going to be starting shortly in the green "front garden" of swindon, near to Jct 16 of the M4 - called Witchelstowe. Again, loads of housing, but infrastructure, eg doctors and roads following later.
I heartily second PPH's suggestions - Broad Hinton, Wanborough, and Bishopstone in particular. Wroughton and Chiseldon are good for getting to lots of other places, with mixed housing stock, so you can have a box if you want one, but there are options from 1600 cottages through to 2007 boxes. Alexandra Park is a new development 10 minutes outside of Wroughton - loads of new houses, but quite far away from anything else. If you want to be further north, then Highworth or Stanton Fitzwarren are lovely villages.
Secondary education seems to be a particular problem - don't know much about North Swindon, but SBC are closing/merging schools, so if you are fixed on the state system for secondary, I would use this as your over ride. Ridgeway in Wroughton is in the throes of a nasty criminal/civil case at the moment, it did have an issue with knives in the school, but that has been sorted and the grades are good. It is however, going to be the catchement secondary for the new Witchelstowe development, so pressure on class sizes will become an issue in 5 years time I guess.
As long as you avoid the concrete central of Swindon itself, its a pretty good place to live. All we need is a John Lewis, Waitrose is on its way, so hopefully JL will follow soon, especially as Concrete Central is being redeveloped so much.

I'd love to meet up with some other swindon mnetters!

Bigwombat - agree re the oversubscribed schools and that it is a big problem

WannaBe - Isn't it strange how 2 people who now people connected to the school have 2 such different opinions of it! I am visiting there next week so will, at least be able to form my own opinion. I suppose, being a teacher, I view schools in 2 ways. The first being where I would love to work and the second where I would like my child to go. The Head does seem very nice on the phone...

I don't think the house prices are necessarily overpriced -do you really think we paid what 'rightmove' says we did? We certainly didn't, £40k less in fact and the people I know on my street didn't pay what was asked. You can get a good deal if you haggle...

Milge - Waitrose is on its way???? Yippeeee

We have a house of Fraser but dh and I go to Bath as it's only 40 mins away and has everything we like.

I work in Swindon & live in the Cotswolds.

Some of the people I work with come from Bristol & Cheltenham which are both about 45 minutes away so quite a wide radius would be covered by the 30 mins commute.

Oh Salisbury is only about an hour away and there are loads of lovely villages on the drive to there (although must admit that I've never actually stopped in any of them).

£40k less Wow! The most we have knocked off an asking price is 5K, but then both times we moved, there were other interested parties. Might you be available for hire, on a no win no fee basis?

Any haggling tips appreciated!

There is infrastructure in N Swindon - doctors/dentists/schools/libraries/supermarkets/local shopping - certainly a lot more than you'll get in a rural village. They have undercalculated on the schools big time though - apparently they didn't expect families from other parts of Swindon to relocate up there, expecting more childless young professional types to buy the housing. It's all gone a bit wrong . And they're still building yet more housing.

I do think there's going to be a problem selling the houses in N Swindon too. There's about 5 for sale in this immediate area, all on for ages and nothing has sold and some at what seems quite keen prices too.

How about West Swindon? DH is looking at a property in Shaw on Monday.

I think muppetgirl is talking about buying from the developer - we were offered a similar huge discount off, but somehow they manage to wangle it so the asking price is showing on Rightmove!

The Bell is the name of the pub in Ramsbury, and very good it is too.

I think Swindon is like most places, there are some vile parts and some really rather nice areas. Some of the housing in Old Town is far from cheap! I work in Swindon, and certainly know a large number of professionals who have chosen to live there so as to be close to work, and also to have access to a good transport infrastructure (1h05 on the train into London, quick onto the M4).

We currently live in the Cotswolds, but are looking to move to one of the villages between Marlborough and Swindon so as to get better access to the M4. I really think that Swindon is on the up, it's just going to take time and money.

Have a look at the Swindon regeneration site:

New Swindon

Exellent knews!

news even!

on both counts

Hi Chonky!!

Bigwombat - will CAT you, as I need to pick your brains please r.e. SEN schools in Wilts (from what you've written so far it all sounds promising ). Our house is going on the market next week (hurrah - Wilts here we come)!

Another vote for Cirencester. I LOVED living there. But was childless at the time, so can tell you all about the pubs but not the schools .

Sounds exciting! Not sure I am set up for cat - email me [email protected] - hope that works! If you live between Marlborough/Swindon, would you fall into Swindon for schools?? Not sure about that.

chonky - I can help with SEN provision in SBC area, if it is any use mnmilge at yahoo dot co dot uk.

PPH,she doesn't drive and has a 9 month old baby, for goodness sake! (Sorry to talk over you, MUM2G). She could feel a bit isolated in a village, where the buses only run to the town centre every 90 minutes. When you first leave work to have a baby you need to be able to make new friends. This can be difficult in a village situation. I had the opportunity of moving back to Cricklade but found that Abbey Meads (OK, a box in a lovely cul-de-sac, with lots of families and clubs for the babies/children every day) has been the best decision we made. Visit the villages for your private schools and butchers if you like (we do), but choose a good location in North Swindon and you would have a lot of company and some very good schools.

Will do (later, as having mad pre-valuation clean-up with a v.grumpy dh) bigwombat and milge - thank you!

milge - does your child go to BH? (trying to remain vaguely anonymous!) My dd goes there.