Experiences of giving up commuter belt for more rural life

[spydie]

Husband and I have been thinking/talking for years about relocating where we can get a lot more for our money. We live in ££ Kent commuter belt, and whilst we have a lovely house, we relish the outdoor life and would dearly love to have the land to keep our horses at home, and for our 2 daughters to enjoy.

We could get somewhere further out in Kent that gives us the land, but we would be spending a lot of money. But to relocate elsewhere we could potentially get so much more for our money.

Has anyone done this? Would love to hear experiences, pros and cons. We love the look of Wales, Devon and Cornwall in particular if anyone has relocated there.

We returned from overseas and bought in South Shropshire - a few acres and a work in progress farmhouse for the price of a good London flat.

I have weekly commuted to London for the last ten years, which for us gives us the best of both worlds. COVID-19 has obviously put paid to the weekly commute for the time being.

The challenges have been:

• Availability of good jobs in the area. My DW has not been able to find anything that really used her skill set as job opportunities are limited.
• It's a long way from anywhere. We're 2 hours from Cardiff, Manchester, Birmingham, and the best part of four door-to-door from London.
• There aren't the same range of opportunities on your doorstep - you have to get involved in whatever the community is doing if you want to get the most out of it.
• Broadband internet varies a lot in rural areas - when we first moved here we got 0.6Mbps on ADSL - enough to read email and websites but that was it. Fortunately a couple of years later a line of sight wireless provider set up the necessary infrastructure so we now get 20Mbps down/4Mbps up - which makes modern life tenable.
• Being off mains water has its challenges. We are fortunate to have a good friendly plumber who will turn up on Sundays and late evenings when a pump has failed or tree roots have blocked the supply from our spring. While you save on water rates, and can water the garden without concern, maintenance costs can be high.
• Being off mains sewerage is also a consideration - make sure the condition of any foul water drainage system is assessed and factored in as replacing them is expensive.

Other things to think about:

• if you are going properly rural you won't be popping to the shops every day. We are 6 miles from the nearest convenience store, 15 miles from the nearest supermarket, and 40 miles from the nearest full size supermarket.
• It's worth researching what the local council's gritting routes are for winter. We are fortunate that we are off a B road that is gritted - some of our neighbours on other lanes have to park cars near the main road and use quad bikes to get to their farms in snowy conditions.
• Costs of maintenance if you have land are worth bearing in mind. Replacing fences / rotten fence posts, hedge trimming by the local agricultural contractor, topping the weeds in paddocks, etc. all mounts up.

Happy to answer any questions you may have based on our experience.

I would look at Dorset. As soon as you go 'round the corner' into Devon and Cornwall you really are a long way from 'real' life. From Dorset you can still be in London on the train in a couple of hours.

Dorset is very horsey and there are some good schools, state and Independent.

I moved from Buckinghamshire (30 mins to central London) to South Devon 2 years ago. Mainly due to house prices. We love it by the sea. No regrets.