anyone moved/moving out of london?

[Greatfun]

We are in SW London. Not the swanky bit just the average bit. DH and I are seriously considering moving away to get more space and better schools. Our house is lovely and the area is lovely but some of the surrounding areas are not. DD is at the local primary which was the best we coudl get into. Its quite mixed in terms of social backgrounds but alot of the parents are what I woudl describe as rough. DH and I just didnt picture this for our kids. We are tentatively looking at either moving further out into Surrey on the SW train line or anywhere out from Victoria or DH may look for a job else where so we will move in the direction of Bristol (very general direction). Sorry I really am ranting on now but my general questions are:

1. Is life as you would expect after moving out? Were the schools really better?
2. How did you adjust or was that not an issue? DH particularly has a great social life courtesy of London so I know he would miss this but says he wants a better life for kids.
3. Do you think kids out of London have more freedom? Thats one of my big things. I really want my kids ot have more freedom as they grow up whereas here I can't imagine that happening.

Thanks. I look forward to your replies.

goldenpeach I've just moved to Rugby - will you be my friend!

We moved out of a lovely part of London in the Spring. I loved London but we just couldn't afford it any more. There were loads of great restaurants, shops, cafes etc but we didn't have the money. We had a lovely 3 bedroomed terrace with a tiny garden which was fine for a baby but no good for 2 growing boys.

Now we are renting a large house with garden full of goal nets, climbing frames and cricket bats and DS1 loves it.

I'm still in 2 minds as to whether we have done the right thing but here's my twopenneth.

London is very compartmentalised. Areas attract like minded people so the chances are the area you are living in has a high proportion of young families etc. Outside of London it's not like this and, whilst this is good, it does make it a little harder to make friends. People have big gardens (see above) so hanging out in the park with friends isn't done quite so much. I think DS1 was quite lonely at first has he was so used to playing with lots of children all of the time. I'm quite lonely too but I think you would get this moving to a new area in London too.

Our house purchase fell through at the last minute and I'm quite (sort of) glad it did. It was a small village and I think this would have been too isolating for me. Also you have to bloody well drive everywhere and you can't walk to get a cup of coffee
(I did hear that Carluccio's profits had gone down 14% - that was me leaving ).

In short, I think London is a fabulous place to live if you have a large amount of cash and can afford to get out whenever you need to. Otherwise, I think a life outside is probably better.

But I shall be having this discussion internally for the rest of my days...........

fruitstick- agree with much of your observations. Do you think that some of theb London suburbs (Bucks, Amersham, Beaconfield, Chesham for example) are a half way house in terms of mix of people ,access, schools ?

Well fruistick, you can email me at [email protected] or turn up at the breastfeeding cafe tomorrow at claremont road centre 12-2pm as I'm a bf helper. My little one is two, we go to swings and waterpark in Rugby.

Greatfun, I recommend reading
Escape from London

and

Guide to commuterland

I reserved them both through my library when I was in London.

We moved away from SW London (Earlsfield) to Ewell/Epsom borders, and then 2 years later have moved to T Wells as I never settled in Epsom. On paper it looks great but I didn't really meet people I clicked with.

Here, there are lots of SW London exiles, we're still both working in London (me part time) so I do get the hustle and bustle, but the children are in fantastic schools with lots of like minded children/parents, I have made some wonderful friends, and we have got much more house than we would have done in Winchester/Surrey. We have some fantastic countryside on the doorstep, aren't too far from the sea, can do a day trip to France if we fancy it, and there are lots of cultural things going on here - or you can be in london for the theatre/art exhibitions in an hour - perfect!

Plus, all being well, we sit between 3 grammar schools, one of which is highly selective, the other two less so, and I'm hoping that all three DCs manage to pass the 11+, thus saving us ££££ on school fees!!!!

I do miss my family, as they are in the West Country and it was much easier flying down the A3 to the motorway than heading round the M25 from Kent, but for us as a family, it's been absolutely fantastic.

Very uesful thread for me, this. We're (very slowly, but thats another story) selling up in SW London, and going to rent locally - which gives us plenty of time to think about where next.

Current choices are to stay in our area, or move to Oxford - I have family there, grew up there, be reasonably easy for dh to work there, etc. We have two young dds, but are quite old parents ourselves and it feels hard to start all over again when we have a great community here - but OTOH, a fair bit more for our money, and better secondary schools, in Oxford. Aaargh.

So many pros and cons either way....

Thanks all.

Goldenpeach - I will speak to my local library about those books. Thanks so much.

Southern Meerkat - Thats very interesting. Its not the first time T/Wells but it looked too far from Devon for DHs famile but perhaps I will reconsider. We have also been looking at Epsom/Ewell but not sure. I definately don't want to be too far from London as I woudl miss it. I am a London girl through and through. Where would I be without that pollution

Meant to say not the first time T/Wells was mentioned to us.

Greatfun - am happy to give you more info on why we left Epsom on email if you like - swmeerkat @ hotmail. com (without the spaces obviously) as it sounds as though we may be on a similar page - we didn't have a vast place in SW london to trade in, and ended up with a 3 bed semi in Ewell - so we weren't in the £1m+ bracket that many of our NCT friends were. T Wells has given us a great quality of life - we had a triangle when we were looking which was schools/community/commute - and this has ticked every box. Aside from the distance to Devon/Somerset to see my folks, it's brilliant. But we do have friends who went west to Winchester (which was our other idea) and who love it, but they had a bit more money to play with than we did.

Elibean, not Oxford! We came a cropper there and are now looking in Cambridge (where scarcity of properties makes buying a challenge). Still keeping an eye on Oxford, though where there is a deluge of ugly ex rentals at sky high prices.... The only decent house we saw we lost to higher offer - and it wasn't perfect either.

Why cropper, Goldenpeach? Hope you find what you're looking for soon, sounds like yo'uve been through the mill looking!

Oxford is probably the only place apart from SW London that makes sense atm, for us, because of family...familiarity...schools...though we would wait a while anyway.

Any more stories, good or bad, esp about schools, welcome!

To date we got gazumped on both Oxford and Cambridge. Oxford has plenty up for sale but asking prices are unreal. Still some people get 'bargains'. Take expensive Summertown, where Harpes Road's houses are asking 400k+. Well, one house sold for 240 in March. Unbelievable. We viewed a house at 320 (the only 'cheap' house in the road) in same road, the semi attached to it was sold the previous year for 460, granted it had a loft conversion, but honestly, it was not a nice house at all! Then we put offer for this house near the Plain and got gazumped. Then we looked around in Cambridge and got gazumped even if we had a cash offer close to asking price (the chain won).

Goldenpeach - we have been looking in Cambridge for last 6 months or so and there seemed to be a reasonable number of properties available at first and prices were OK-ish for us (similar to where we are in NW London). We found that in April though everything went crazy - we had about 10 houses to view one weekend and they all went before we got chance - some which had been around for a while and others which had just come on to the market. Since then very little has come up and when things do come up they go very quickly. Of course this coincided with when we got a buyer for our house and we have had a very stressful time trying to find somewhere. In the end we leafletted houses in Histon/Impington which was our preferred area and we were lucky to find something - now going through conveyancing which is very stressful. Good luck with your hunt!

Goldenpeach how stressful, to say the least.

FWIW, we just had long chat with our EA (close to exchange on our London home, going into rental) and she says the current soaring prices are a blip, that they expect prices to drop in the last quarter, and that its just people panicking to get in before school hols/start of year. There is a very low supply here too, but that isn't the only reason prices are up - which tbh is reassuring, for us, because if it was we'd be stuck for a very long time!

What are you going to do, if you don't find something to buy? Are you renting?

sorry to hijack - goldenpeach, are you there every friday? Couldn't make it last week but will try again this week.

Elibean, I'm getting so desperate, I even considered a bungalow in Kennington but layout was not suitable. Nada in Cambridge at the moment. I'm renting in Rugby, it's a nice semi with huge garden so I'm enjoying it at the moment but most of my stuff is still in the garage!

Fruitstick, I am there every Friday. You can email me on [email protected] if you'd rather meet elsewhere (we go often to library and waterpark)

Poor GP. Kennington is neither Cambridge nor Oxford, so maybe a good thing??! Hope the garden makes it bearable for a bit longer till market shifts - it does seem rather unstable, so something is bound to change, I would think.

Rugby no good, long term?

Elibean, we have been in Rugby for 10 months now, we were meant to be here but town is too small, that's why I suggested Greatfun that she should look carefully where she moves as a village or small town is not always the best option.

Rugby has great schools (even grammar ones), so I recommend it for those who are after good schools and want to be 50 mins away from London by train. I think it also depends on which job one wants to do, because of credit crunch writing and editing work dried up and it's really difficult for somebody like me who wants to work from home. So I started teaching Italian but I reckon Cambridge/Oxford offer good options as there are also several publishers. I mean kennington near Oxford, not in London!

Although renting has been a hassle as most of my stuff is stored in garage awaiting the move, we did save money as rents are lower here and can live in a nice area too.

I'm packing right now, moving out of London.

It's lifestyle really. To move away I will be mortgage free with a similar if not bigger home which would take away considerable financial pressure. I am a single mum and this means I will not have the pressure of having to find full time work in order to pay a mortgage and provide for my girls.

I found an area, I visited schools. Smaller class sizes which pleased me! Like you my girls are at the best school in the area which is massively over subscribed and looking at ofsted reports a little better than average. However, both local schools in our new area are better (ofsted reports which are newer than the current school) and I can't complain about the smaller class sizes. They also have a grammar school system, I have even been and checked these The other big bonus for us is that children in the catchment area are also entitled to subsidised transport on coaches to and from school.
Council Tax is cheaper too! The traffic jams are not a problem and the busy roads aren't as busy as where we live now.
There are plenty of local voluntary places for both adults and kids (family bonding YaY) and just possibly I might me able to get over my severe traffic phobia and (they say) kids can ride out on the street. Wow, that would be HUGE for us!
There are plenty of open spaces and a real community spirit including lots of town activities such as summer/Christmas fairs and concerts.
For me, it's the community I'm looking forward to, spending more time with my kids and hopefully alot more wellies and trees and alot less 'who's got what'.
This is just my personal story and whether you have moved or are still thinking on it, find the place, be sure, spend lots of time there and (for me anyway) it should 'feel' right.
As for work, there are lots of places to live where you/husband can commute from.

I understand how you feel, when I go to school and all the 8 year olds have mobile phones etc etc etc. I want my kids to be kids for as long as they can and enjoy all that comes with it and for me, it's comminity and open space and less NOISE.

They even have a local farm and cinema run by volunteers. I feel it's my girls that will be the lucky ones, not the 8 year olds with limos and expensive birthday parties.

I would love to hear what you decided to do...

I grew up in remote part of West Ireland (idyllic wild childhood) and since lived in London for several years and also Edinburgh. Now live in North West England in small village. Lots of advantages- no commuting and if you do have long drive somewhere, it is still nowhere as horrible as crushed trains. Schools are small and the kids all seem nice and well mannered- but this is a small village and I am sure we will struggle with secondary school and not get same advantage. Social life is what you make of it- with young kids we can go out but it means babysitters. it is a good active community but you have to want this kind of life. My husband is from London and he loves it. He toyed with the idea of going back to the south but he is really happy with the lifestyle we have here.