Moving to Cambridgeshire

[MelBD123]

Hello Mums in Cambridgeshire

Urgently need your advice as to where to live in Cambridgeshire.

We are planning to relocate to Cambridgeshire due to job changes. Need to commute to Cambridge city centre at least twice a week. I have a school age DS, and a nursery age DD. And I don't drive!!

Budget for house is between £650k and £750k. Of course the lower end of the budge is preferred because of the high mortgage rate these days. 4-bed detached with a good sized garden would be great. Hopefully, there would be easily accessible shops/facilities for entertaining kids nearby. Also, good local primary and state secondary schools are required.

I've looked into in-year transfer for DS. It seems to me that selling current house and buying new house on chain would not be a good idea. I want to avoid the tragic situation that the chain takes ages and when house purchase is finally completed and the school place is gone! So to be on the safe side and to secure a place for DS in a desired nearby school, renting first would be a better option (correct me if I am wrong!)

So far we've considered 1. Meldreth/Melbourn, 2. Water beach and 3 Ely.

Option 1 (Meldreth/Melbourn) is significantly more expensive than other two options. There are 2 primaries in the area and 1 village college there. Ofsted reports are good for each one but academic performance does not appear to be outstanding (correct me if I am wrong). There is just 1 nursery and I don't know whether I can secure a space for DD. Also I am not sure whether it would be easy for me to get by because I don't drive.

Options 2 and 3 seem more reasonable priced. Not so sure about waterbeach because of the new town development plan. I've heard a lot of good things about Ely. I can see that there are several decent primaries and a lot of nurseries in Ely. So I assume it would be easier to find a school and a nursery for DS and DD.

We also considered other villages (harston, newton, comberton) in south Cambridgeshire. They are nice, but how to commute to Cambridge seems to be a problem. The buses appear to run at 7:30am-ish and 9:30am-ish during rush hour, without any services in between?! How do people living there travel to Cambridge then?

Which area would you recommend in my situation? In addition, if there are ways to commute from south cam villages (which are not on the train line) to Cambridge, we will definitely consider them again.

Thank you very much for your time.

The Waterbeach station move is predicted to be late 2025 http://live.gcpmock.cambscc.contensis.cloud/sustainable-transport-programme/other-transport-schemes/new-station-for-waterbeach

It's also worth checking train reliability if you'll be commuting into Cambridge https://raildar.co.uk/myJourney

Thank you for your comment. It is really reassuring to hear that you love Ely. Please may I pick your brain on local primary schools and areas? The 4 primaries all have places for DS. Which one(s) do you think are better in terms of environment and academic performance? We aren't churchgoers though. Which area(s) should I go for or stay away from? I like older style houses but are open minded about new-ish builds done at 2000-ish. Many thanks in advance.

Fifteen years ago, we were in a somewhat similar situation to yours. We were living in Suffolk and wanted to move nearer to Cambridge after I got a job teaching in a school in the city. The 30 mile each way commute was exhausting - the worst part being the first/last 5 miles getting in and out of the city! However, after the chain below us collapsed twice causing us to lose the Cambridge house we’d hoped to buy, we decided to sell first and rent for a while before buying again. This worked well for us for two reasons. Firstly, it gave us the opportunity to try living in two different Cambridgeshire villages and get a feel for what they had to offer and secondly, it put us in a much better position when it came to buying - no chain below us and having a much larger deposit than most first time buyers made us first choice for sellers when there were several offers on the table.

Obviously, one has to factor in the additional moving costs and if house prices start rising quickly it would be important to buy again before too long but house prices in this area are pretty stable at the moment. Furthermore, rents in this area are very high so you’d should take a look at Rightmove etc to gauge how much you’d pay for the type of property you are looking to rent.

We started renting in Hardwick, which was ok if you have a car or are prepared to cycle (bearing in mind Madingly Hill is one of the few hills in this area and can be a killer cycling home). However, there’s only one local shop and the GP surgery is in the next village so I wouldn’t recommend it for a mum without a car. Furthermore, we quickly learned the buses going into Cambridge from the South/West villages aren't very reliable.

We then moved to a rental property in Waterbeach. We fell in love with the community and facilities here so restricted our property searches to within the village. Subsequently, we bought our property in the centre of the Waterbeach - a decision I’ve never regretted. Not only can we walk to the station and get a train that takes 7 minutes to get to Cambridge, we can be in London within an hour too and there are direct trains to Brighton, where we often visit family. There’s loads going on here, lots of opportunities to be involved, beautiful walks along the river as well as a children’s recreation park, several shops and pubs, a pharmacy, cafe, GP surgery, gym, great nurseries, playgroups and toddler groups, a good primary school, myriad clubs and societies for children and adults, a riding stables, a thriving group of artists who organise a yearly arts festival (have a look at ‘Summer at the Beach’ website) and a monthly craft and artisan food market. The community spirit here is great - during the height of the pandemic the offers of help we received from complete strangers for my disabled and extremely vulnerable husband was phenomenal.

Obviously, things may change somewhat as the new town development grows to the North of Waterbeach but personally I’m optimistic this will add even better facilities, including a new health centre and two secondary schools. Furthermore, it’s likely that a guided bus route will be added at some point. Having said that, I prefer being in the centre of the older part of the village, at the heart of the community and within easy walking distance of everything. I think the new builds are vastly overpriced but you can definitely get a decent 4 bed house in the older part of Waterbeach within your budget.

I hope this helps. Good luck in your search and feel free to ask any questions. If you do come to look at houses here, drop me a message and I’d be happy to meet up and show you some of the Waterbeach highlights!

New town developers have promised a free bus service from the centre of the old village if the station moves.

Interesting, I didn't know much about waterbeach and your comments have made me consider it for my family.

OP, if your work is near the central train station, I think you should commute by train and move near a train station with a decent service to Cambridge. You don't have a budget for the house you want in central Cambridge so moving further out is the best option. I wouldn't rely on buses though, no way!

With your budget, I vote for Cherry Hinton, with CB1 postcode, close to amenities and city center, you can probably bike there.

Saffron Walden is lovely

Ely snd Great Shelford are both good shouts, both on a train line direct to Cambridge. There are two train stations in Cambridge, so you should be able to get to your job fairly easily.

I'm a big fan of living in Cambridge itself though, and compromising on house size. You will get a bog standard 4-bed in that budget (not detached). But Cambridge is a wonderful place to live and to raise kids, and so easily manageable without a car. I love it here.

I strongly wouldn't rely on a bus communte - busses here are terrible, traffic is famously awful. Trains are a much better shout.

Cambourne is awful - soulless. I would have hated to be stuck being a teenager there.

I've lived in Arbury/Kings Hedges and loved it. Cambridge is physically very small, so you can't be > 2 miles from the city centre. It was an easy cycle from Kings Hedges every day to work on the south side of the city. Cambridge isn't a rough place, so the less well off areas (like those mentioned above) are fine. I recommend visiting to get the feel, as different streets there will have different vibes - some streets feel deprived, some not at all. Good schools in the area.

Hey OP @MelBD123 reading this thread with interest as in a similar situation - which area did you move to?

Hi we have decided to stay in Manchester. That turns out to be a good decision in the end.

I am used to having nursery around the corner, being able to walk my kids to school and then taking a quick train journey to work. After visiting several houses in various places (including Meldreth&Melbourn, whittlesford and Ely), I felt that a move to any of those places would downgrade my day-to-day life quality by a lot. In the meantime, DH was not happy with his new job. So he left that job (which could be made redundant in a year later due to company restructuring as we found out). With the reason for moving no longer existed, we have happily stayed in our current house.

Hope you can find the place which suits all your needs. Moving for jobs is a bit like gambling.

After visiting several houses in various places (including Meldreth&Melbourn, whittlesford and Ely

To be fair all those places are quite a way out of Cambridge. It sounds like things have worked out well for you anyway.