Where has a good community and nice people!

[Zebrazo]

Hi! I’m in the process of relocating from south London to Stirling area with my husband and 2 children (6 and 8). My husbands job is based near Edinburgh airport and we’re trying to decide where is best to live. We love Bridge of Allan, but South Queensferry and Linlithgow are also options. We’ve driven around these areas and prefer the period properties in Bofa but love the pubs in south queensferry and the train connections in Linlithgow. My main question is, which has the best community and would be best to raise a family? My husband and I are both Scottish but we have 2 English little boys. We can hopefully afford to live in any of these areas (because we’ve grafted & renovated 3 properties down south) but we don’t have pots of money and prefer average people! Are these areas friendly and diverse? We don’t want to be keeping up with the Joneses!

Have you considered Dunblane? It's great for it's train links to Edinburgh & Glasgow too.

I'm actually about to put my traditional sandstone house on the market - detached, about 1acre plot - PM if you are interested 😉

They're all friendly, safe and good for families.
I'm not sure I'd call any of them diverse though.
Personally with the commute for your DH and what you're looking for I'd go for Linlithgow

I grew up in Linlithgow (moved away but still have friends and family there) so probably somewhat biased but it also has plenty of good pubs (better than S Queensferry I would say) as well as the excellent transport links and loads of facilities, things for kids to do and good schools.
I went to BofA once to visit a friend who had moved there from L'gow and remember thinking that it felt really small and a bit dull, TBH!
Dunblane is a good shout though and definitely worth a look.

All of these are good options; in terms of travel I'd say South Queensferry or Linlithgow - commuting in to Edinburgh can be a real pain & the roads around the airport very congested.

But you'll get more for your money in Dunblane/Bridge if Allan - and the former has excellent schooling (the best of all your options).

Thanks for all these comments! It’s really helpful. The consensus seems to be that Linlithgow would be best. Property prices there seem crazily high, so I guess that means it’s got a lot going for it! Is the drive between Stirling and Edinburgh airport really that bad? Whenever I look on goggle maps it says around 30 mins, which sounds ok? Dunblane is also on the list. We had a drive around there last week and got an ice cream, and it had a nice vibe.

It's not a bad drive from Stirling to Edinburgh airport, definitely not 30 minutes though. Even outside rush hour its 45 mins.
Linlithgow is about 25 mins less

Dunblane or Auchterarder?

Not sure what Doune is like.

Dunblane is nice but expensive. I’ve just sold my house in Dunblane and it sold for 25% over asking price.

Doune has no train station so not great for commuting And TBH I wouldn’t live there.

BofA is nice but have no knowledge of the schools.

When I was looking for our new house (just needed to be closer to Edinburgh) I never saw anything I could afford or I liked in south queensferry but I do like the location.

I did consider Linlithgow but tbh it’s proximity to Polmont and the very smelly landfill site put me off.

Hope you find what you’re looking for 😊

All really nice places but you need to do the commute at rush hour to get an idea of what you’re signing up for. I haven’t done it since pre-covid but used to be very very slow from the m90 joining, through newbridge and to gogar, even if you’re only going as far as the airport.

might be worth doing the Google search at the kind of times you’d be doing the journey to get an idea (but don’t do that this week because it’s the highland show which is always a traffic shitshow)

This is all very helpful, thank you! We’re seriously considering Linlithgow. Does anyone have an opinions on the best schools? The house we’re considering is in the catchment for Linlithgow Primary. I’ve done some research on inspection reports but can’t find very much useful data so it would be good to hear from people who have experience of the school. Also, are the school gates full of childminders (since it’s a wealthy area) or are we likely to be able to make friends easily?

Low Port used to be the best. The Primary used to have shall we say a "mixed" catchment (incorporating the council estate) but there has been quite a bit of development in the last few years and the SNP have run all schools into the ground anyway, so there is not likely to be that much difference now.
Like every school, there will be cliques but as I say, the Lgow Primary catchment is quite mixed so definitely not all the kids will be going to childminders.
Although childminders are humans as well and very possibly will have kids at the same school.
Happy house hunting!

For an easy commute to the airport, I would consider South Queensferry, Ratho, Balerno, Kirkliston, Corstorphine, Currie, Crammond. No need to be outside City of Edinburgh boundary.