Family Friendly Areas with short commute to Central London?

Hi Guys =)

A quick run-down on our situation:

- Husband and I are moving over on an ancestry visa at the end of May.
- Husband is looking for work (I.T Professional)
- We have booked a hostel for 3 weeks with option to extend if necessary!
- If and when husband lands job we will be looking for somewhere to live
- When we've rented a place my mother will travel over to London bringing our 3 children

Assuming he finds work (considering the state of the world's economy at the moment )

- Hubby doesn't want to travel far to work
- He'll either be working around Canary Warf/Docklands or in City of London
- Our children will be 8, 5 and 3.
- We will be using the state school system (if that's what you call it? i.e the "free" school's where you pay for excursions, books and materials etc. but you don't pay "fees" per-say)
- Which areas are safe with ok schools but still close to these areas?
- Greenwich looks nice and quiet....BUT apparently you don't want to be south of the Thames if your commuting into the city every day?
- We have a good amount of savings behind us (I realise we will burn through it quickly if not careful though!)...I only mention this to illustrate that we aren't in a HUGE rush once arriving and that we can also afford to pay bond etc. on a rental with no problems.


Any advice would be greatly appreciated in relation to anything we need to consider?

A Big Thankyou in Advance


Jenny

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Hi there Jenny :wave:

Firstly, good luck with the move and the job-hunt... I hope that all works out for you both!

Re areas to live, I think Greenwich is a really good starting point. It's a lovely area and has plenty of greenery around (Blackheath for example) and in terms of the city/canary wharf is still pretty well connected via the jubilee line to waterloo(then waterloo & city) or direct to canary wharf. I don't agree that you can't commute to those aread from south, it obviously just depends where your closest transport links are.

Obviously budget is a major consideration -

St John's Wood is very central and very nice as is Hampstead but both areas are pretty pricey.

A bit further out and better value but still pretty nice is East Dulwich (apparently you can cycle to the city in 25 mins!), Putney or Fulham. Wimbledon is also popular with a good shopping centre, plenty of green space and good links into town via overland (waterloo which links to waterloo & city or jubilee line to canary wharf) or tube.

Sorry not to be very specific, but London is so big it's pretty difficult to give very exact advice. There are also so many state schools I couldn't tell you at all where the best ones are but what you can do is to use this site

http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/oxcare_providers/list/
(use the drop down on the left to highlight schools and then enter your prospective postcodes) in order to get the latest independent inspectors reports for the school. Generally you want 1s or 2s in the results with 3 being ok but not great.

Hope that helps a little - feel free to post back with more questions
:thumbsup:

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