Moving from SE London to Brighton? Help!

[DreamyRoseBeaker]

Hello 👋🏽 I’m looking for some friendly advice. I’ve been living in London my entire adult life and I turn 40 this year. I’ve got two DC aged 4 and 2 with one on the way now to complete our family. As much as people have their dislike for London and raising kids there, I have very much enjoyed it and still do. I personally have no problem in raising my kids here until adulthood as I feel very comfortable and in the know about how things work here in regards to what are good schools etc. DH is always concerned about the kids getting into trouble in their teens as there’s always something going off but hasn’t urgently expressed to get out of the city but he definitely doesn’t like it as much as me.

My eldest child tells me quite often that he doesn’t like London because it’s too noisy and whilst he is just 4, I do take on board that there’s a chance he doesn’t like the environment he’s in.

I’ve always said that Brighton would be on e of the only places I’d like to live outside of London as I personally feel that it’s like a little London by the sea, close to country side, artistic and over all a little more chill by London standards of course. We also both have friends here. The only thing that really put my husband off is the commute but the idea would be for him to become freelance again as that’s what he wants. He also said this is not a deal breaker.

We don’t have a huge budget to move but enough to get small house or maisonette. We’ve been looking mainly in Brighton to get that easy city life transition and be closer to the sea of course! We do need to get to London though so a station that’s not too much of an faff to get to would be nice too.
Also we are getting older and enjoying a bit more of a slower pace. We’ve been looking as central as 5 mins from the beach and places like Hanover, Aldrington, Elm Grove. hove doesn’t have much in our budget unfortunately.

I’d love to get advice on what it’s like if you’re a family with children currently living in the area, and how you find schooling etc? I just want the real tea before we make this life changing move. Everyone we know who lives there likes it but they’re biased to want us to move! I think coming from London we do not get as phased by the grit of Brighton. We may move further out eventually but for the initial move we’d like to not have a culture shock from our Zone two way of life.

Any advice at all would be so appreciated!

I will preface by saying I lived in Brighton for six months but it was 45 years ago. I also knew London well and had spent a lot of time at my grandparents' London home.

Compared to London, I found Brighton a sprawling mass that just merged into different bits. It was without cohesion, the shingle beach was awful, etc. It was one of reasons I dropped out of uni.

London by comparison is a collection of villages and each area has its own identity: Pimlico, Chelsea, Fulham, Chiswick, etc.

I might be more inclined to look at Southend, if you want the coast, or some of the zone 4/5/6 locations, for example: Blackheath, Sutton which retain proximity but which are quieter/greener, and have very good schools.

Can you look at some quieter areas of London? Zone 2 is v central (I would say ‘lucky you’ but take the point that your DH and 4yo don’t agree)

We brought up our teens v happily in S London. Right next to gang activity. But those not involved were simply not involved. It was normal to not be involved, and not at risk.

And the drug use in our seaside towns such as Brighton and Hastings is sky high. And fewer activities available to occupy teens constructively.

I wouldn't worry too much about the London commute, I know lots of people that do it a few times a week (every day would be hard though with DC).

Good points:
Open minded, diverse and inclusive
Primary schools are great
Council has recently redone most of the playgrounds
Nice outdoor pools on the seafront
New skate park on Hove Beach
From listening to parent friends with older DC...I don't think gangs/muggings are a big worry in the teen years

Not good points:
Lots of issues with drugs and street homelessness
Secondary schools - they may be changing the catchment areas (may mean more long bus journeys across the city)
The indoor pools aren't great
Central Brighton parking is tricky and gardens are tiny
Suburbs - will take you a while to get to the train station

Brighton isn't really that diverse ethnically so that will be a change from zone 2. In my friends school class there are very few children that identify as the sex they were born (this might or might not be an issue for you). There is some peer pressure to be 'different' from what she has told me but I don't have personal experience of this. There was a lottery system for schools, I think they're consulting on changes.

House prices are high in the nicer areas and the scuzzier areas are still pretty expensive for what you get with no or tiny gardens. Lots of visible drug use, gen and stag parties in the centre. I'd maybe look a bit further out in Hove or Worthing. Or move out to zone 3/4 - places like Charlton, Kidbrooke, Penge, Anerley are great with excellent schools and easy to get out to the countryside or into London.

I would stay in London. Brighton has plenty of issues with teen gang related behaviour and drugs, it's also more parochial and narrow minded than its reputation suggests. It's very white and if you don't subscribe to the dominant political discourse there is little space for you. I lived there for 12 years and am glad I left when my DS was a toddler.

No we are very lucky! But the problem is we’ve outgrown our house by a substantial amount. And I don’t mean a little we are talking 2 kids and a parent sharing a room while the other takes the couch every night! And unfortunately after losing a buyer on our place we lost the house in zone 3. Since then everything has gone up 50K for similar properties and we just don’t have the money for it now. Plus not really worth their money but it’s the going rates. When looking at Brighton we were taken aback by what our money could get us. Period properties, turnkey ready on charming streets. So really it’s more for a change in lifestyle on out down time and to upscale.

I do know what you mean re:gangs. It’s very much within the culture here but like you said you are able to exist and be off the radar with that stuff. Luckily I’ve never been mugged or had much bother at all. But what I will say is a few of my mates who grew up in London have been stabbed due to not giving up their phone or wallet when they were teens. They were not directly involved but this was obviously more than 20 years ago and areas change. All my mates who grew up in London definitely matured quicker, were very street smart and did have that slight edge in the sense they’d not been sheltered. But I also have friends from the Home Counties who were absolutely buck wild for lack of things to do!

We checked out Charlton but already priced out for a house on the Blackheath side. Any further in is too suburban for me. I did t like Kidbrooke I’m afraid. Liked Penge and Anerley but are also too expensive for a house for our budget. In Brighton houses are around £475-550 whereas mentioned areas start at £650-700K.

The places we looked at today were Elm Grove/Hanover (dh liked this area best). The house I really liked was also I guess in that area but a further in on the other side of the cemetery and was a half our walk from the station which DH didnt like. He also felt the road wasnt as nice.

We also saw a lovely maisonette which was the size of a house of a central brighton street. this felt the most like we’d be making the most of the location change but DH thinks we will outgrow the space quickly.

We looked in Aldrington but wasn’t really for us as there was too much train faff to go back in to come back out.

can anyone comment on the Elm Grove area?

Brighton so horribly druggy and ‘woke’ in that kind of closed minded actually quite ignorant way. Every time I’ve been there I’ve seen open crack and heroin use, just in the street in front of my kids. It’s so much grittier than London. I would worry about my kids being teenagers there.

Elm Grove towards Hanover is more family friendly, the other side of Elm Grove towards Lewes Road is more studenty/not as nice imo.

I know of 3 families that moved back to London from Brighton (one to Kingston, one to Purley, one to somewhere near Bromley) once their kids reached secondary age due to the schools and the druggy culture in Brighton. Brighton seems like a good place to live with young kids if you don't mind the crowds etc. but not so much once they get older.

we looked on a house on Lynton street which seemed nice. It’s close to elm grove primary. When I did host there was loud music coming from one of the houses so I was concerned that was a studenty road but coming from London where I’m hearing music blasting from an estate very frequently it’s not a shock!

Brighton is an incredible place to live with children. The areas you are interested in are lovely and full of former londoners. Join the local Facebook groups to get a better feel for the place.

Echo what others have said about the area being great for small kids, but less so for teenagers. Secondaries are really mixed and even the sought after ones have lots of problems. While I know there’s drugs everywhere, there are LOADS of drug issues crammed into a much smaller space here than you’d find in London so it feels very close to home. I grew up in a pretty rough part of London but didn’t see anything like the open drug use you see down here frequently.

We’re happy enough and will stay here now as our teens are coming up to exam years etc but if I’d had a crystal ball 10ish years ago, I might have made a different choice. Lots of positives still: beach vibe is great in summer, we live in a really lovely community bubble (Hove) with great friends, sports for the kids etc, but think carefully as the city issues you say you’d be looking to minimise still exist down here, and concentrated into a small area!

PM me if you have any questions.

Thanks for that! I did think that may have a bit more of an inside view of the areas

I lived in Hanover years ago. It was a nice place to live. I didn’t have kids then, but it was very much a family area - and also great for a pub crawl with all those micro pubs! I think some of those have gone now though, sadly. Easy to walk into town.

I then lived in SE London for a few years and had my dc there. I hated it, but Dh was happy there and didn’t want to leave London. So I sympathise with your position - someone has to compromise, and that’s really hard.

We now live in a village outside Brighton. There’s a main line station a five minutes drive away, so when dh commuted that was ok (although he only goes up once a week now). It’s handy for day trips too, so I feel like we get the best of both worlds - access to all the good stuff about London without the filth, noise and muggings outside our door.

Brighton is easy for the kids to get to on the train (now they’re teenagers) but they’re not immersed in that city life 24/7, so have not been exposed to any sort of drug culture. Mind you, they’re quite nerdy so hang out at board games cafes and the like; they’re just not interested in drinking or anything wild (thank god - and yes I do know this could change.)

Schools are brilliant where we are. Lovely cosy village primary within five minutes walking distance, OFSTED outstanding secondary in the next village, also within walking/cycling distance.

Personally I am so, so happy here and massively relieved we moved out of London. Dh, the one-time ‘I’ll never leave London’ man also loves it and is glad I persuaded him move. He has got into cycling and hiking, and gets up early every weekend to get out into the beautiful countryside that’s on our doorstep.

Yesterday the kids were on the sledging hill (still loads of snow on the north face of the downs) all afternoon. Such a far cry from the crappy little park that was our local ‘green’ space in SE London!

My best advice is do loads of research. Look at loads of houses in as many different areas as possible. Maybe even rent an AirB&B in Brighton for a fortnight/month, not as a holiday, but to try your normal routine there. We did this and it really helped us get a feel for whether we wanted to do it.

All of the above said: I’ve just opened my curtains to a gorgeous sunny sea view and had a little ‘I love living here!’ moment, so came back on to emphasise the positives!

Choose your location carefully, thinking ahead to secondary school (which comes around far quicker than you think - sorry if that sounds patronising!). Ideally try to find somewhere that gives you a few options.

Hangleton has a similar feel to Hove and is better priced for gardens, parking etc. Depending on where you are exactly, you could be in catchment for Blatch, Hove Park, Kings and Newman at secondary level, so you’d have some element of choice later (obvs depending on availability etc). Primaries are all pretty good too.

Surprised by the Brighton haters! Obviously it's not perfect but I absolutely love it - the sea, the Downs, vibrant art/music/culture scene, the Festival, the Lanes, great food, good schools, AMAZING pubs!

Elm Grove is very family oriented and the primary is fab. Both Dorothy Stringer and Varndean are really good secondaries. We moved from Tottenham in 2016 and have never looked back. I'm going surfing this afternoon! It's such a great place to live.

I would say Haywards Heath might suit the commute better, plus your visitors would be able to park; that's not the case in Brighton, which is very much anti-car.

Commute, yes, but definitely not the city vibe that OP seems to be after

Hi. No advice but I’m green with envy. Love Brighton with a passion x

Aw surfing how amazing! May I ask if that’s the area you chose to raise your kids in? Is varndean and Dorothy stringer in the catchment for that area? My husband has fallen for a house there. I was the one who was desperate to get him there and he seems more into it than me now!

That’s so lovely! I can’t see the view particularly well from the houses we looked at but I’m small lol
DH could see from the loft spaces a couple of times.

I do think about the secondary schools too even now so appreciate your point.

Depends where in Brighton, a lot of it is a shithole. Up towards Kempton is better, Saltdean if you want to go a bit further out. Hove end is nicer.

I love the view of the South Downs that we have now, but I must admit I still miss the glorious sea view I had in my Brighton years! (That was when I lived in Kemptown rather than Hanover though.)