Sorry, another one of these! Looking to do the classic move out of London for better schools and more space.
Our requirements are:
- 4/5 bed semi (or detached) around £700k
- OK trains to London (will be doing once a week)
- Good secondary and primary schools (not fee paying)
- We like pretty town/city centres with some history/nice buildings
- Plenty to do for teenagers and safe enough for them to get around by themselves
- Near forest and coast (but this is fairly low down the list and realistically we'll only go a few days a year!)
- Lots of leisure activities - cinema, bowling, swimming etc for families
- Green space/parks - and a decent playground or two
Colchester, Norwich and Canterbury are all contenders based on research and day trips - which do you think sounds closest to our wish list? We are moving from a lively area of London so would want to live relatively centrally rather than in a village - city life is more our thing (even if it's a much smaller city). I grew up in Cambridge and I think am probably trying to recreate my own childhood/teen experience here, but sadly Cambridge is too expensive for the sort of home that we'd like!
Basically every time we get excited about somewhere as an option we then find lots of posts online about how bad the traffic is, or how dire the high street is, or how somewhere is overrun by students or carnage on a Saturday night. It's helpful to know the down sides of different places but also makes it hard to get excited about moving to them!
Obviously nowhere is perfect but we are looking for a forever home where we can put down roots and so we want to make the right choice. Once we edge closer to a decision we will probably airbnb there for a 'holiday' to get more of a sense.
Would particularly love to hear from people who have experience living in these places, or know people who do?
Thank you!