I hate where we’ve moved

[IHate]

Finally bit the bullet last year and moved out of central London. Young family, needed more space/garden/access to decent schools/the usual.

Bought in Sutton. Our research made it seem we were buying in a ‘nice bit’, we got a decent house (£625K, as wanted to make the most of being first time buyers re stamp duty), lots of green spaces, the nearby primaries are good and the grammars look great.

We hate it, though. There’s no sense of community. Everything is a bit downmarket. It’s not diverse. There’s no ‘vibe’. I really don’t want my kids growing up here.

We really want to decamp somewhere. We love Wimbledon, but can’t afford anything decent there. And all the places further outside London might have the same issues we’re experiencing here. Also, we just bought, it was a super expensive process, and we’ve spent about £50K doing up the house. Moving again would be madness, right?

What would you do?

We currently have five, would need at least four. Budget could be £1.1m, but that would need to be it. Our forever and ever house.

We really liked Beckenham, but couldn’t find anything suitable when we were looking. Definitely worth revisiting. Streatham isn’t great for schools.

That’s a fair point.

Yes, there was a great sense of community where we previously lived. No, it wasn’t ethnicity specific.

Are you tied to south London? You’d get a nice 4 bed in Forest Hill/Sydenham if so, or Wanstead or parts of Hackney if you’d consider east…

Colliers Wood is as close to Wimbledon as I can muster, but my knowledge of that area is about 20 years out of date, and no idea about schools…

Hello neighbour from the infamous St Helier estate 😉

We moved here from Teddington (obviously renting) and bought a 3 bed house for the same price of a 1 bed flat in Hampton Wick.

I was extremely depressed for a couple of years (coincided with covid etc so difficult to tell if it was just the area or lockdowns too) then eventually decided to make the most of the local amenities (Morden Hall Park is lovely in the spring/summer), excellent transportation links and now regularly take the bus or tram to Wimbledon/Kingston and enjoy things there without the property price tag.

That being said I wouldn't be here if I had £1.1m to spend 🫣

We have also done the house up very nicely and I also don't want to send my DC to school here, luckily one is 20 months old and the other still inside me so we have a while to decide yet. Unfortunately for us, our max budget would be half a milli, especially with interest rates where they are, and we just haven't found anywhere else we'd rather be because of how convenient the location is. I mean in the summer we can be in Brighton in 70 minutes in the car for goodness sake.

I'm not sure what I'm offering here other than empathy.

How's your husband finding it?

I agree with this, and try to do it before dcs start school.

I second moving to Tunbridge Wells.

My brother in law moved there from Beckenham almost a decade ago with his wife and now young children and they love it.

They've made friends with loads of neighbours who are in similar circumstances, they have a WhatsApp group for their street, and had a lovely Christmas lights switch-on party in mid-December.

We considered Sutton and surrounding areas -

Epsom, stoneleigh, Worcester park all nice enough

we truly loved cheam but couldn’t afford what we wanted

ended up moving to surbiton - berrylands specifically, and really like it. Feel a great community - only a train stop from Wimbledon but also can go into Kingston, and Esher and parts of Surrey. The river is near and so many families around - I really love it - so

if you don’t feel it in a year perhaps it’s worth moving. Being part of a school community does change things but once your kid is in school it will be tougher to move after

Have you also considered Brighton (well Hove to be precise)?

We've been here since 2000 and it's full of ex-Londoners and has a fantastic community feel. And it's 50 minutes to Victoria by train.

but cheam is absolutely lovely

that’s different to Sutton

Not entirely sure why, but this made me laugh. You sound delightful. 😊

DH doesn’t like it, but as long as the schools are good and the house is nice, he can deal with it. He commutes into London during the week, so isn’t actually here very much. Agrees that this isn’t ‘our’ place and we need to look at other areas, but doesn’t hate it as much as I do.

I really like Hove, but we thought it too far from London (when we were initially looking). Might reconsider!

We like different things, I guess.

@IHate

There's a WI in Cheam.

It could be a good place to make new friends and find things in the community you hadn't yet heard about.

https://surrey.thewi.org.uk/find-wi/cheam

Move.

You can get 4 bed places in Wimbledon in budget.

Was Richmond an option?

Agree with this. We moved 'out' when we had kids, had similar feelings and clawed our way back in time for school starting. Ended up in Crystal Palace with no regrets. Check it out and some of those other places mentioned that still have more London feel (Penge, Beckenham etc.) while not being as £££ as Wimbledon or as out of it as Sutton.

Cheam Village is very different to Sutton!

Fair enough if you don't like it, but some of these replies talking about Sutton being "grim" are thinking of Sutton town centre, which is worlds away from Cheam Village.

Cheam Village is very different to Sutton!

Loads of places in the borough of Sutton are different to Sutton town centre!

I don’t think Surbiton is that different from Cheam Village tbh.

Maybe New Malden or North Kingston? But school catchments can be issue I think.

Or Raynes Park/Motspur park if priced out of Wimbledon. Schooling seems high priority though and that’s going to be the issue for you.