Lichfield or ??? Moving from SW London

[AzBucks]

Hello Mumsnet Community! (First poster here).

We (my wife, 6year old son and 6week old son) are considering moving out of SW London to Lichfield in Staffordshire......bigger house, potentially a better lifestyle for us all etc etc.

A good UK commute is important for me (typically 3days at home and 2 travelling) and my wife will need to travel to London once or twice a week for work.

From what we've seen Lichfield looks awesome and seems to be ticking every box apart from not being near family, who are in Bristol and London.

My wife (born and raised in SW London) wants us to be in walking distance to things going on and doesn't want to soley rely on having to drive.

Any opinions on Lichfield would be welcome? Seems to be some great cafes, restaurants, schools and things to do for kids.

Also happy to hear of any other areas you think we should be considering?

We've ruled out Birmingham due to long school waiting lists for good state schools for our 6year old and oversubscribed / full private schools.

Budget is around £600k and we are after a 4 / 5 bed within a mile of a train station and things going on!! Plan A is for kids to go to good state schools but we are also open to small independent schools too.

Any comments more would be much appreciated.

Thanks

Hi @VijTR . I feel your dilemma! Unfortunately for us, the people we were buying from pulled out of the sale 3 weeks ago. This coincided with my wife having a wobble about the cost of trains to London and the door to door travel duration from Lichfield to he office. It actually felt like the universe had spoken when it fell through. We love Lichfield but have decided not to pursue it, a friend of mine who lives near Lichfield told us that the trains are a bit unreliable are very difficult if not impossible to work on because the Internet is so bad and there are rarely tables to use.

Stafford as mentioned above was another option but after visiting it wasn't quite what we were after in terms of a place to live. It is much better for commuting to London though with more frequent trains that you can work on.

We also considered Chippenham which is 10mins on the train from Bath and is being granted City status soon, so will be developed more and more over the years. Its close to London and Bristol so may also be worth exploring.

After an all consuming 12months of looking into options we have decided to stay in SW London for now and are remortgaging to extend!! We have gone completely 180!!!

Best of luck with your dilemma @VijTR like I said I feel your pain!!!

Lichfield is nice, but check out Newark for an alternative. Beautiful houses and very affordable. IMHO it has a nicer town centre.

We live in Nottingham on the fast rail link side. Have a look at West Bridgford - everything you want in a short walk and packed with people in your circumstances now.

Don't move to Stafford. Never Stafford 😄

Lichfield continues to confuse, allow more new builds that ever before & encouraging existing residents to feel the squeeze. The vast housing expansion means Shenstone to the south and Fradley to the north will soon be structurally attached to Lichfield by the expensive, yet small & poor quality finish new homes. Will there be a repeat of the Darwin Park Walsall Road estates lack of dwelling driveways & all the extensive kerb & double parking each evening?.
HS2 development to the Trent Valley part of the city & Streethay has plagued motorists for well over 5 years now and there is no end in sight to the concrete pour despite the beliefs that HS2 was being cut back. Pot holes galore & even when repaired reappear within months due to the heavy congestion that regularly grid locks parts of the city.
Lichfield is being failed by a great lack of health clinics/doctor access & has no true A & E department despite having one when the city was 2/3 the size it is now. Once had 3 cinemas but not 1 now. Almost a quarter of the citys' residents are retired & the developing infrastructure is leaning more towards retirement provision than youth provision. Even so one of Lichfields' oldest crown green bowls venues was hastily demolished in favour of a car park & put down to a lack of demographic demand!.
There is a growing number of single occupancy residents living in older parts of the city where 3/4 of the bedrooms remain unoccupied, am I missing something here?
Look to the outlying villages for better provision.