Are Ashley Heath/Ringwood/Ferndown/Wimborne nice places to live?

[Bettina777]

My hubby and I are planning to retire to Dorset and are focusing our attention on the AshleyHeath/Ringwood/Ferndown/Wimborne areas but we don’t know what it would be like to live there. We are moving 250 miles. We are young at heart and keep pretty active so need plenty to keep us occupied - walking/cycling/nice places to eat etc.

We don’t want a place that’s too sleepy nor anything too big or busy either, but we do want it to be pretty and dare I say a bit upmarket.

Ashley Heath looks like it might be right (is Horton Road a busy main road?) and Ringwood (though not officially Dorset!) though the A31 looks a nightmare, but also Wimborne. Ferndown is a maybe but a bit big perhaps?

Can anyone who lives in these places give any insight into what it’s like and any info would be gratefully received. It’s so difficult moving somewhere new when you don’t really know if you’re going to get it right.

Thank you so much.

I wouldn’t do Wimborne either because of the GP situation, so much better now we have moved out of the area. The GP we had was awful and ended up in front of a GMC tribunal I believe and certainly his management of the health condition one of my DC had was negligent and I believe contributed to a breakdown that they aren’t recovered from 2.5 years later.

We spent 20 years there and personally I wouldn’t go back to the area as the transport system was awful for the areas of the country I needed to get to. One of my DC needed to get to Exeter weekly and it was 55 mins to the station as had to go to Sherborne. Weekends when DC were back from Cardiff and Exeter it took 2 of us to retrieve them, one of us to go to Salisbury station and one to Sherborne. DD could have got another train to get to Sherborne eventually but it would have taken ages.

It’s fine if you want to go to London etc but rubbish for some areas of the country. We’re now 5 mins from a station and it is a complete non event picking up the DC and 3 mins walk from GP which is useful as I have developed a chronic health condition and need regular bloods. Had major surgery last summer and had a 5 minute drive from local hospital where the parking was easy which was a very different experience to previous surgeries getting to Poole and Bournemouth.

Now the DC are university age and older a few of my friends have all moved out of the area. It was a nice place to live and I do miss my friends but am much happier in new area.