Where to live, outside of London?

[allaboutmoving]

Hi, I'm hoping for some advice on a potential move. Live in south west London with my DH and 2 small DC. We have a nice house here in a nice area etc., but as my children are growing I'm realising I really don't want to raise them in London. Both myself and DH grew up in the country and whilst I don't want to move to the sticks, I would like the children to have a bit more freedom than I suspect they will be able to have here. The cost of living crisis has contributed to my feelings I think because, whilst we have a nice house, our mortgage has increased a lot and I feel that we could probably get something nicer / bigger outside of London for the same money.

Where we currently live there is a nice little high street, lots of green spaces nearby and good transport links. We like all of these things and essentially want to replicate them somewhere a bit further out.

The main difficulty is that my husband doesn't have a fixed office and travels around for work. Therefore, we have always based ourselves near(ish) to a station so that he can get into central London easily in order to get the train to wherever he needs to be that week. He doesn't want to leave the house at 5am every day and get back after the children are in bed (and I don't want this for him either), so we are not even sure that leaving London is a possibility, as it may just make his days too long / travel too difficult.

We don't want to be rural. Somewhere with a town, parks, things for children to do, good schools are a must.

So.. question is, where should we look at?

What are the most frequent destinations he needs to travel to?

I'd have a look along the Thameslink lines, both north and south. Thameslink trains stop at London Bridge, Blackfriars, Farringdon, and St Pancras, so it's great if you need to go to different places in London. St Albans might be a good option, though it's not much cheaper than SW London. Sevenoaks is also nice.

@KievLoverTwo impossible to say really, could be anywhere from the home counties to manchester to wales - so we have always tried to be fairly near to a main station where he can then get trains out to wherever (e.g. at the moment we are about 40 - 50 mins from paddington, euston & kings cross, and 15 mins from waterloo)

@sarahb083 thanks, hadn't thought about St Albans actually, so will have a look at the kinds of prices there

I live in St Albans. You’d struggle to get a cottage for £400 in St Albans proper. It will be in non bustling, outlying villages (park street, London Conley) that aren’t feasible without a car.

£450is doable https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/137718089?utm_campaign=property-details&utm_content=buying&utm_medium=sharing&utm_source=copytoclipboard#/&channel=RES_BUY

You get a lot more for your money if you go a bit further out. Ampthill is lovely and 50mins from central London on the Thameslink