Rochester/strood

[Vw01]

Heyy guys! Anyone familiar with chattenden? We are a family of 4 (4year old and a newborn) looking to move into rochester/trood. We saw a house in chattenden and loved it but we don't know much about the area. Any info would help! Thanks x

Lived in Rochester for 19years.
Chattenden is north of Upnor it had an army barracks and ammunition store. That’s its history anyway.

Dont know a lot about Chattenden other than if you are working in Rochester you’ll need to get over the bridge. Trying to do that at commuter time or at the end of the school day is hell.

Any specific questions ?

Upnor btw is lovely. Small, castle lovely old houses leading down to the Medway.

Upnor is very nice, quaint. Great pubs and an amazing Portuguese restaurant there. I know little about Chattenden other than its history as an army barracks and its quiet. Traffic can get busy on the dual carriageway

I would steer well clear unfortunately. From my experience it's very insular and anyone perceived as an outsider is not easily welcomed in. There are very very few local amenities and few links to local transport which mean that this become self perpetuating. Unemployment is high and school not great.

I’d second that re the schools.

The primary was on its last legs and talk of it being combined with Hundred of Hoo. Not sure if that’s happened now. The nearest secondary school is Hundred of Hoo aswell. That went into special measures some years back and had to be taken care of by the Head of The Maths in Rochester. Not sure how it’s going now I just remember taking my boys swimming in Hoo and hearing the schools receptionist over a loud speaker blaring out the end of break. A little Wierd I thought

@KnickerlessFlannel we found the area quite welcoming. We spoke to few people living in the area and everyone seemed very friendly. The house we saw is near chattenden primary school..we wfh mainly but do occasionally commute to London which is why thought this is a good spot as we have strood and higham stations nearby. Don't really need to travel into rochester town unless it's for shopping

@DrPrunesqualer are the schools that bad? We checked oftstead and it looked decent?

My experience is quite different. What i found is that due to relatively high unemployment, there are lots of people at home all day and tend to be quite tied into each other's comings and goings, which then results in a lot of dramatic Fallings out etc.

Additionally there are a lot of low income families who don't have access to cars and the bus routes are poor. This may not impact you directly but does impact on the culture of the area, especially for teens where there's little to do apart from 'hang around' leading to ASB.

Hundred of Hoo school has recently been taken over by Leigh Academy and that is likely to be a huge positive if you're looking slightly further afield. For primaries I'd also look more towards hoo or the other way and go to wainscoting or through the tunnel to st Mary's island.

@KnickerlessFlannel thanks that's very helpful!!

It’s a Grammar area.
Rochester Maths ( boys) and RGS ( girls ) are the better schools.
There’s other ones in Chatham too ( not as good)
The non Grammars aren’t as good and some have real behavioural issues eg Brompton Academy. Strood Academy is an amalgamation of two others. They joined with a girls school to improve behaviour and wouldn't be anyone’s first choice.

Its One of those areas if you don’t get your kids into Grammar it’s all a bit crap I’m afraid.

Not sure how Hoo is doing now though

Strood academy has also recently joined to the Leigh Academy and has a much improved reputation. There's also maritime academy which is a very new secondary.

Agree thay the grammar options are better but a bugger to get to from there.

Fort Pitt is probably the closest grammar option and will be co-ed from September 26.

I would say Wainscott is much nicer than Chattenden and it’s closer to Strood station.

Agree it’s out on a limb.
Gravesend might be a better bet for schools. At least you don’t have to try and cross the Medway

@DrPrunesqualer so we currently live in gravesend and been here for over 4years and I'm afraid it's not a great place to raise a family unless you are somewhere around North fleet or eblesfleet or even shorne. The rest isnt great specially for schools it's not great at all.

Hence why we were looking at Rochester/strood or even Maidstone.

@GimmieABreakOr3 tbh the house we saw in chattenden is not too far from wainscott cliffewood area. Possibly under 10min drive or so.

Ok
I worked in Gravesend for years and a colleague had his kids in school there.

The Grammar, They did well and behaviour was good. His kids are in their late 20s now so a while ago.

@DrPrunesqualer yeah I feel like it's changed in the past few years. When we initially moved here it was good, as the years went by I feel like it's just been deteriorating... But yes I suppose there's always a good side and a bad side for all places...
But personally I wouldn't want to stay around proper gravesend ..

Yeah, but I think you’d prefer to actually be in and live in Wainscott. Speaking as a local here.

High Halstow is lovely but it’s a bit further out.

@GimmieABreakOr3 ahh okay - fair enough.

You’re looking then on the West side of Chattenden
Are you aware of housing proposals for the old Barrack site

@DrPrunesqualerno I actually am not aware of this. Have they got the go ahead for it or not yet?

@DrPrunesqualeralthough im ngl I'm not a big fan of newly builts...

There was originally a proposal for 2000 properties and I remember seeing placards everywhere against this.

They are now looking at 500 new builds and some retail units.

They’ve put in a scoping request for planning. ie first stage to request what info the planners want for an application

to source this application
Google
Medway planning applications and search ‘current applications’ for ‘Chattenden’.