Walkable amenities

[tapandteacake]

Hi everyone

I'm trying to decide how important/useful it is to live within walking distance of certain amenities when you have children, ie primary school, doctor, shop, maybe a cafe or pub etc.

Some people I've spoken to say it's amazing and they'd hate to have to load the kids into the car twice a day for the school run for example and some say it's a nightmare walking because it's often dangerous/stressful with multiple kids or too slow or it rains all the time etc.

If you live walking distance to the primary school, how often do you actually walk it? Do you love it? If you don't live within walking distance, do you wish you did?

It seems that houses in walking distance of primary schools are often more expensive so I'm having to decide if it's better to have a larger house but have to drive to the school or shop or have a smaller house and be able to walk.

Thank you for any input!

I live within walking distance of school, shops and public transport - I love it and wouldn’t have it any other way. Never found it difficult walking somewhere, far easier than driving unless it’s tipping it down (fairly rare). But then I dislike driving and live in a city where driving is quite slow and stressful, so imagine this depends where you live.

Another consideration- as mine approach teen years I am very grateful to be somewhere walkable as it means I won’t be required to give multiple lifts every weekend.

Define walking distance? We're 2 miles from the nearest primary/shop/doctor but I consider it walkable and (mostly) across fields. Pub at the end of the road.

It’s lovely to live in walking distance. It means you can pop and get things if needed (I’m forgetful and disorganised) and it means you are naturally more active (getting in the car feels like it is a conscious choice on that day) and as the PP said it allows the pre-teens/teens to be so much more independent

We love being in walking distance of everything and very rarely use the car. Within ten to fifteen minutes we have our primary school, the town centre, station, doctors, library, leisure centre with pool, soft play and park.

We walk whatever the weather.

In my opinion it's a great way of encouraging an active lifestyle in children. I have lots of friends whose kids moan about walking any distance because they have to use the car so much, but it's just a normal part of everyday life for us so mine never complain.

I would hate to have to use the car all the time and faff with parking etc.

It's 20 mins walk to primary school for us.
Half an hour walk to town.
Walk all the time.
Anywhere we can walk to in an hour, we walk to

DDs went to five Primary schools between the 2 of them die to house moves.

The one we had to drive to was the most stressful. You have no control over how long it takes... our drive varied from 7minutes to 45 minutes. Then there was the day I left home with them at 8 15, and made it home at half ten as the whole town gridlocked.

Not to mention the parking stress.

Whereas walking... it too the same time every day. Plus it means they can have that independence in Yr5/6 for walking alone.

And of course if they live within walking distance of the school they are likely to have lots of schoolfriends very close by which is lovely.

This is all so useful! I guess by walking distance I mean a realistic walk for a 5 year old child to get to school and then home again at the end of the day. I only have a 1 year old at the moment but I'm hoping to have another child or two so I'm envisioning walking the eldest to school with a buggy for the younger ones. I was also picturing the kids driving me up the wall on a Sunday morning and chucking everyone in the buggy to head out for a pub breakfast, or a walk to a cafe for a hot chocolate on a Saturday afternoon etc.

We had two years between houses where we had to drive to school. Now we can walk and it's so lovely. It's good discipline to walk in all weathers. It's good for the kids and exercise gets the brain going in the morning. There are also far fewer crumbs in the car.

Ten minute walk to school, and max 15 min walk to town. Seven minutes walk to nearest shop, ten max to a cafe or pub. Love it as it means that it is easy to get everywhere.

My 5 year old tends to scoot everywhere, but things like parking are a nightmare at her school. Driving there and finding a place to park would take at least as long as it does for us to walk/scoot! It's also helpful for things like school events, sickness, parents evening...

If the walk is a struggle for a reception child then a scooter can help a lot, or even a buggy board if you have a younger one in a buggy anyway. They get used to the walk and faster at it very quickly.

I'd say do the walks a couple of times. My old house was walking distance to a pub and the village school but along a fast lane without a pavement and there's no way you'd be happy to do that twice a day. My new house is still walking distance but there are pavements all the way. You can't just tell looking at a map

We live 10-15 mins walk from school. We always walk. Parking is tricky and stressful, so I'm glad we don't have to deal with it. We walk some places (park, pub, restaurant, corner shop, train station mainly to commute). Most other places we drive.

We have a 7 min walk to primary school and do it every day. Also a 20 min walk into town which is a really nice thing to do at the weekend. My kids can have some independence as not always reliant on me giving lifts.

Definitely go for walking distance!

In our village I can walk to the primary school, the village shop, play park, duck pond and pub.

To go anywhere other than in the village you need to have a reliable car and drive everywhere.

The nearest market town is 7 miles and the City is 25 miles. The local secondary school is 8 miles away .

In our village, we have a busses to get local people in and out of the city and market town to and from work and the secondary school, but after 09:30 there is a bus through the village every 3 hours.The last bus is 18:30.

It is an absolute pita, having to drive everywhere and I am also taxi at the weekend to my teenager.

The village, is nice, but when DH and I can no longer drive - we will be moving elsewhere with more amenities that we can walk to with good public transport links.

I disagree. We live 0.8 miles away from the primary and I have a reception aged child, she also went to nursery there. We drive 95% of the time. I’ve tried to walk/ scoot/ bike and it’s a fucking nightmare. Tantrums, falling over, meltdowns. NOT WORTH IT. We are actually are buying a bigger house further away as walking is not a factor for us.

Definitely the walkable option! We live in a village but have school, shops, park, mini library and Drs within a 20 mins walk. It’s great.

I have no idea how 15-minute cities became a conspiracy theory, it’s ace having lots of amenities on your doorstep. Better for your family’s health and the planet to walk, too.

I can't imagine not being able to walk to school. I've been doing school runs for nearly 5 years now, and I can happily say that not one single day has been by car. I don't want to sound unbearably smug, it's just been a necessity for us and isn't a joy every single day, but honestly, it is mostly wonderful. Parking is stressful to find a space (everyone is grumpy), there are often traffic wardens waiting to catch you out, it's miserable.
We can walk to almost anything we need during the week, it's part of our lifestyle though, we're a one car family, and this is what makes us happy.
Also don't underestimate how many times you may be back and forth to school, I dropped them off this morning, went back after lunch to volunteer with the class, went back to pick up one child at 4pm after a short club and back at 5pm for second child's longer club! Monday is the silliest day, but possible because it's only a few minutes walk!

I grew up in London suburbia and then moved to zone 2 when I got married. When we moved out of London my non negotiable was I had to be able to walk to shops and ideally a station (we commute to London)
I didn't have kids at the time but when we had DC their primary school was 5 min walk, their secondary school is 15 min walk. Town with shops is 20 min, station is 15 min.
It's been useful when the car had had to go to the garage for various repairs, and now they are teens I barely have to taxi them about at all. I collect from parties at midnight, and from activities if it's dark/raining etc but they can get themselves to school and go to the next town on the train for cinema, better shops, or go into London.

this is the sort of response I thought I'd get more of!

Our school is at the end of our road. We live a 5 minute walk from a busy high street. Town is 25 minutes door to door on bus (5 mins walking either end) . GP, leisure centre, library, all walking distance (within 10 mins). I can get anything done on the high street. Playdates are walking distance. I can nip into a friends for a coffee or a drink really easily. Pub drinks on the weekend..dinners, etc. I love it - its not bucolic or always particularly peaceful but I recognise every day that it makes things a lot easier.

Crucially I am not a homebody- being at home all the time is not my idea of fun (especially with kids who need plenty of exercising).

I have 3 kids and a small car and the idea of loading them in an out of it multiple times a day just makes me feel tired.

Lots of people live slightly further away from our school (say, 10-15 minute walk) and they say reception is a slog. But once they are that little bit older, and you start to make chums on the school run, it's a lovely sociable start to the day. I'm always in a good mood by the end of it..sometimes invite people in for a coffee if work allows!

I bet it's great to be able to walk everywhere, but for me it's one of those where you can't miss what you've never had! I have never lived within a realistic everyday walking distance of school (40 mins at kid speed!) but I'm paying to run a car regardless and most days have to drive to work, so walking to school is neither here nor there. Would be great to have the option but you can't have everything and we had other priorities.

I am within walking distance of a corner shop, post office and pharmacy, and even then it's handy but not essential - I mostly stop off on my drive back from work!

We went for the more expensive smaller house but we have a school up the road and all the amenities within a ten minute walk. That was important to us.

We've just moved from a village with no amenities/public transport and no pavements (pretty much) to a lovely big village (shop/park/primary + secondary school walkable). Zero regrets, my LO is still a pre-schooler but I could just see visions of the future where he refused to walk anywhere from being too used to the car and I became a mum-taxi because he couldn't get anywhere to see friends. As for the weather, we'll get some decent waterproofs and crack on with it!