Living in Faringdon, Oxfordshire. What do you think?

[ShouldWeMoveToFaringdon]

Hi All,

Does anyone live in or around Faringdon and can give us an opinion of what's it like to live there?

We're currently renting in Witney and are looking to buy a property in the area, however we cannot quite find something decent within our budget. We had found a newly built property in one of the newer estates, but the sale fell through due to a bad survey result.

We've started looking around in other towns and found a nice new build property in Faringdon, but we don't know much about the area. We visited a few times to get a sense of what it'd be like to live there and this is my assessment:

• the town centre seems dead; a couple of nice little cafes, but that's about it.
• not many amenities, at least compared to Witney (but appreciate it's a smaller town, which is ok).
• doesn't feel unsafe and it's rather quiet (which we like).
• not many options in terms of schools (we have a kid, although too young for school yet)?
• nice countryside nearby (similar to Witney I guess).

We actually like the idea of living in a smaller town, but we're also wondering whether it's just a romanticised view and we might end up hating it once the novelty wears off. We lived in London before Witney. Took a while to adjust, but we eventually started to like living here (especially the nature around it, safety and proximity to Oxford). Buying a house is a big investment and we wouldn't want to be in a position to having to sell in a just few years and/or being stuck because of location.

There seems to be a fair bit going on looking at the Faringdon FB groups, but again it's hard to give a fair assessment unless you've lived there for a while.

Hopefully someone can give us a better idea of what Faringdon has to offer.

TIA!

I don't know the area very well, however Faringdon is very quiet, compared to Witney, let alone London. And really it's not that near to Oxford - must be 30 min drive and I'm not sure about public transport. Rural Oxfordshire isn't the best place for buses. I personally would find it a bit remote.

Having said that, it is a beautiful part of England. The 2 villages I know better are Bampton and Lecklade and they do have a good community feel to them, from my view point, although I'm not sure about families with young kids.
Sorry I haven't really answered your question.

I live in Faringdon.

The town centre is pretty quiet and has nowhere near the same level of amenities that Witney does. There are cafes, a couple of nice places to eat, a couple of pubs, charity shops, newsagents and the sort of shop you’d go into to buy a present. Out of town there is Tesco, Waitrose, Aldi and home bargains. A library and a leisure centre.

Its a nice town for kids to grow up in. My kids are 6 and 9 and they play outside on our road with limited supervision. There are quite a lot of baby groups, clubs for kids and playgrounds etc. no soft play.

It’s really safe. I walk home by myself in the evening with no concerns and would go to the pub by myself

There are two primary schools run by the same trust. They’re both nice, friendly, welcoming with a good vibe. We (and many other parents) have found SEN support to be poor. There is only one secondary school which isn’t great at the moment.

There is a good community feel in the town with quite a bit of volunteering, events etc. Although it’s great for the kids I personally find it a bit dull and would prefer to be somewhere a bit bigger.

Feel free to pm me any other questions

Thank you both so much for the very helpful replies!

@DPotter we looked into both Bampton and Lecklade, but couldn't find anything within our budget. We also looked at Burford and Minster Lovell, but we couldn't find much. Cirencester - same story.
Faringdon has a few developments that are still ongoing. The property we looked at and liked is on the west side, near a farm (not sure if I can name the builder on this site). They've only built ~200 houses, so it's a smaller estate. It seems to have a good community feel to it, hence the interest.

@NC10125 Thank you for the insights, that's very helpful! I didn't see the library last time we went for a stroll, glad there is one.
Happy to hear the town is safe and there's a nice community vibe. Admittedly we went on a Sunday, so the town was pretty empty and the only cafe open was The Sadlers, which we very much liked - and good coffee.

> Although it’s great for the kids I personally find it a bit dull and would prefer to be somewhere a bit bigger.

This is basically what I was expecting and it's sort of what we're thinking as well. We might just have to go for it with the mindset that it might not be forever and can always sell at some point (hopefully, given the bad press new builds have had).

That sounds like a good decision. Good luck with the move 😊

Thank you @NC10125 !

Can I just ask a few more things (sorry):

• you mentioned two good primary school run by the same trust. Are those the only two in town? Any other good schools in the area (primary/secondary)?
• given the area is expanding rapidly (I've seen 3 ongoing developments already), do you know if there are any plans by the council to work on supporting infrastructure? Browsing the council FB group, it appears they're trying to "revive" the town centre, which is great!

Thanks!

Those are the only two primary schools in the town, they aren’t oversubscribed.

There are a couple of smaller schools in the villages around which also take children from Faringdon. And there’s a private school called St Hugh’s which is a 10 minute drive. If your child might have any sen needs go for one of the village schools.

As far as I know there aren’t any significant infrastructure plans, although I do think that this would be used.

Feel free to pm me if you have questions Good luck!

Living in Faringdon, Oxfordshire. Is it SAVE?
Hi All,

Does anyone live in Faringdon that could give me your opinion if the town in general is safe?

We are currently looking to buy in Faringdon and we already reserved a house in one of the new developments, but you can change your mind right?
We have already checked a lot of things such as schools, buses, town ((I know it's small) but in general we feel a good vibe.
But now all my concern is when we read about crime in Faringdon, it doesn't look quite good, I know that in all towns have a percentage of general crime but when you read this:

Great Faringdon is the second most dangerous small town in Oxfordshire, and is among the top 20 most dangerous overall out of Oxfordshire's 312 towns, villages, and cities. The overall crime rate in Great Faringdon in 2023 was 120 crimes per 1,000 people.
The most common crimes in Great Faringdon are violence and sexual offences, with 335 offences during 2023, giving a crime rate of 58. This is 29% higher than 2022's figure of 260 offences and a difference of 13.09 from 2022's crime rate of 45. Great Faringdon's least common crime is bicycle theft. https://crimerate.co.uk/oxfordshire/great-faringdon. Faringdon | Your area | Thames Valley Police | Thames Valley Police

I would really like your opinion as a resident. I have three children ( two boys and one girl) . Soon enough they'll go out in the night to Oxford and come back home late and now I'm worried about all of this. Sounds like it will be dangerous to go to the local pub and have a beer on a Friday night, no?

Thanks in advance for your help.
PLazaro