Moving to UK: best family places to live with commute to Canary Wharf

[HKtoUK]

Hello, will be shifting to UK soon and looking for ideal family areas to live in and around London with easy commute (1 hour or less) to Canary Wharf with good schools! Happy with Greater London areas as well. Looked at Kent and awaiting independent school responses (yr10 trf is not easy so looking for independent school with hope to switch to an o/s state school) , but appreciate more suggestions as I am clueless as to where I should begin and which are the bests areas to look at.. Thank you.

Hello. More info needed.
Are you looking to rent or to buy, what’s your £budget and what kind of accommodation do you need?

Hi Enrique, we are looking to rent as this would be our first time in UK. Budget around 1700 p.m Main criterion is good schools and easy commute to canary wharf. Also, move timeline is Jun20.

Stratford
Greenwich
West Ham
All on direct DLR route (15 minutes max commute from station)

Lewisham is one change on the dlr and probably around 20 minutes from station to station.

If you're willing to travel a bit longer Bromley is a nice area with excellent schools.

Thank you so much!

You’ve got time to do plenty of research then. I’d say make yourself an account on the Rightmove app or website. You can check school ratings on there and save properties that interest you, with notes.

Try this tool too
commutefrom.com/

Parts of Blackheath might be worth looking at, although I don’t know about schools.

What are you looking to rent? That budget doesn’t go that far in London I’m afraid so your options on it for say a 2 bed flat will be quite different than a 4 bed house.

Are you looking for independent schools or good state schools? Primary or secondary? Would you prefer city living, suburbs or a town/village in the coutryside?

hi JoJoSM2,

Thats where it gets tricky. My older one is in year 10 so looking for yr11 place in any private school which will take him. For LO (primary) and eventually for sixth form looking for good state schools. Ideal solution is to be in a place where there are good state schools. We prefer suburbs and open to town/village within 45 to 1 hour ride for Canary Wharf. Sorry if its too confusing but hopefully we start getting clearer picture soon. Thank you!

The amount of high rise new builds in Lewisham and Bromley could well suit you OP

Lewisham benefits from Lewisham Railway Station and the DLR along with buses to many places .. Shopping Centre is a bit aged, and showing it, but there is talk of demolition and a rebuild .
Bromley , as a PP said, is also nice and has Bromley South Station that would take you to Victoria .

Oh re the schools

There is Riverston in Eltham Road, Lee . I think that is independent. Secondary would be Colfe's, again in Lee .
Pointers School and Steiner School are both in nearby (to Lewisham) Blackheath.
Not sure re that type of school in Bromley as I live in the first Borough I mention. Given the CHOICE though I personally would live in Bromley areas such as Hayes , Keston or West Wickham (though going further out from Canary Wharf, granted)

Sevenoaks is nice though a bit further out. I’d stay away from Lewisham shudder

I wouldn't fancy the commute from Bromley. It's out of the line directly to DLR. There's always buses between the walk to the train in Bromley. That ain't no direct route no matter what way I look at it. 45 minutes to Canary Wharf? In your dreams.
Happy to be proved wrong.

@BeardedMum
I live not far. In a naice part of Lewisham

Look at Upminster and cranham. Very good schools. 45 mins to Canary Wharf. Very leafy nice area. Close to London one way, countryside the other.

As opposed to the common council end then @Monty27 ?

And its Nice , not the effected, old naice.

I wish all you richer incomers would stay away, personally @BeardedMum .

Proper snobs on this thread

I fear I have been misunderstood.
I live in the borough of Lewisham. It's a great commuter area. It's a Labour party stronghold to boot.
Whereas Bromley the London borough of Bromley is only easily accessible to certain parts of 'town'.
And it's Tory land suburbia with an extra zone on your travel expenses. Don't know about council taxes.
Yes @08WhentheRabbitsWentWild. I'm lucky and I know it. Sorry about that. Note the wink on my previous 'naice' post.

If you go to app.traveltimeplatform.com you can put in Canary Wharf and how far you want to travel, and it will give you a map showing all the places reachable in that time. (And it shows Bromley outside the places reachable in an hour!).

If you're looking to go private for the kids I'd probably try and find a school first and base my location on that, as that is likely to be the limiting factor - could be tough to find one that will take a kid into the second year of GCSEs.

Don't rule out state schools for your Y10 child. One of my friends moved house when.her daughter was about to start Y11. The school were really helpful and her daughter did very well.

The other option if your child is moving from abroad is to ask if the school will agree to them starting in Y10 rather than Y11. That would give them a much better chance of getting good GCSEs.

www.compare-school-performance.service.gov.uk/find-a-school-in-england

www.met.police.uk/sd/stats-and-data/met/crime-data-dashboard/

Those 2 websites could be a good start. To get an overview of schools, you can search by ‘local authority’.

The Met Police crime info might be useful as places in London vary a lot.

@lightsabre knows SE London very well so can hopefully come up with ideas with better commute times than my suggestion below.

My suggestions are to look around Carshalton Beeches or Sutton Stations. You get top top schools (the LA is No1 in England for GCSEs). There are probably about 15 independent schools commutable from here for your older one.

The trains go into London Bridge and then you would change to the Jubilee line so a 1h commute is doable.

It’s zone 5 but there’s coutryside to the south (lavender fields, farms with sheep and horses, Banstead Commons etc). However, Sutton has a biggish town centre with a range of shops, restaurants, a cinema etc. There are libraries, leisure centres and if you’re sporty you’d never be bored (public golf course, climbing centre, lots of sports clubs, trampoline park etc). There’s loads for kids to do.

@pettswoodparadise might be able to help with SE London suggestions too.

My husband works in Canary Wharf and we live in Blackheath. Hither Green is close by - great state primary schools in both areas, and both are one stop from Lewisham on the train line.

A friend of mine moved from abroad to Bromley. Child was mid-year 10 and they got a place at a great state school.

Bromley- BR1/BR2 or Beckenham BR3 - lee and hither green are closer but less good
Schools
Bromley isn’t a bad journey- train to lewisham c. 10mins then dlr