Better family living areas in London boroughs

Howdy folks!

We are going to be moving pretty soon (about 2 months) to London and of course, we are excited  ! It would be great to get some opinions here on what are the better suited areas for families. The older one will be starting school next year so the better schools in the nearby areas, are definitely the #1 priority. At this stage, can only think of daily commute to work as another important factor . Would like to be stay close to public transit .. expecting plenty of trips to Central London for work although my primary place will be in the Brentford area.

Spoke to a friend who has lived in London and he mentioned Osterley and Hounslow. Although buying a house looks like a far stretch given that we have no history there, we prefer to live (rent) in an area where we can eventually buy and settle down!

Would appreciate any insights folks on the above areas or in general.

Many thanks in anticipation !!

  Please can anyone respond 

Thanx!!

Hi Buzz. I don't have kids, so it's a bit hard for me to know which areas have the best schools or are good for families. But perhaps check out http://www.upmystreet.com/ which can provide a lot of information about any areas you're interested in.

Another thing to help narrow down the search is knowing what your budget is and how large of a flat/house you need.

Hopefully someone will come along to recommend some areas. I tend to think most of southwest London is fairly nice, though. 

I'd check with the local authorities (like municipalities):
http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Dl1/Directories/Localcouncils/DG_4003596

Fotr individual schools, I'd check Ofsted:
http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/

HTH. 

Just to put it into perspective for you, London is made up of 32 boroughs plus the City of London and covers 659 square miles.  There are plenty of nice areas and good schools.  I would suggest you decide on a few things that are most important to you and get a map, a tube map and probably some train maps as well.  It seems like commute to work, schools and public transport are important to you.  Perhaps decide what is an acceptable comute and work from there.  The direct.gov link that mapleleafgirl gave you also has info applying to schools.  You should keep in mind that there is an application process for schools and the good ones may be oversubscribed so it's best have several to choose from.

You don't mention what kind of budget you have but in general, the farther you get away from Central London and Zone 1, the less expensive things get.

Welcome!  Kew is very nice.  Any part of Richmond (borough) is nice, for that matter, and handy for Brentford.  Check through the archives (advanced forum search) for previous posts on Kew, Richmond, and while you're at it, Chiswick as well.  I have no experience of schools, so someone else will have to advise you about that. 

Hi Buzz Dilli,

It's very difficult to suggest areas based on the relative little information you've provided, for instance as already stated, in and around London, it's highly dense for population and there are many facilities and amenities within a very short space of each other.

I suggest you have a look at the myriad of posts here on the forum which ask this sort of advice and where there's more information given, then I also suggest looking at your realistic income level and expenditure costs and finally looking at the property listings to start to have a gauge on pricing levels. As everything varies so much it's got to be down to you as a family to evaluate the many potential areas to live and be based in or around.

I've personally spoken to people who've moved over from the USA who rent £20,000/month properties in and around Virginia Water to others who are renting some of the rougher neighbourhoods for £800+/month - I'm guessing you'd be somewhere in between ?!

Talk to local people in the areas you might be interested in, any friends or acquaintances, work colleagues, estate agents etc, use this resource and other online ones to get a gist from independant people, and then of course discuss within your family etc so that you have a complete picture. When you add in schools as well, it further increases the stakes to find out as much as possible based on your individual circumstances.

Cheers, DtM! West London & Slough UK!

Hi folks. Thanks for some awesome suggestions there ! Hopefully can get some more this time around...definitely helpful exercise this!

Realize that there was some important information missing on the original post. So we would be looking for a 2-bedroom accomodation that is preferably closer to parks & community centres and looking to shell out about £1200 towards our monthly rental.

@Elle.davis - Sure, have been looking at upmystreet, zoopla, and gumtree sites and they provide great information but we were really hoping to pin down our search on few selected areas and run with it. Hoping the extra bit of information added now should help the community members, especially who have been in similar situation, to perhaps suggest some names!


@gretel44 and mapleleafgirl72 - Thanks for the links related to schools and other information there.  We have been looking through those and preparing ourself for the app'ing process. Any clues whether we can start that right away or are we required to be physically present in UK in order to do that? The other thing also is that our older one is going to be attending reception year there but does not get there until October.

@Lanikai - Hey. My office is in the Kew area so will definitely check through the previous to find out any related information about Kew, Richmond, and Chiswick. Schools, as mentioned earlier, are on the top of our agenda so get considerable weightage. Thanks for suggesting some places there!

@Dennis the Menace - £800 - £20000 was quite an extensive range  , don't think there will be many families living in London outside that range. Sure, reading through different threads as well to get more information associated with the overall move.

My school knowledge is strictly 2nd hand based on a friend's experiences.  However, there is the issue of living in the catchment area for a school and if you don't actually live here yet, that could be an issue.

As you've got a budget in mind, you might want to look at some of the property websites:  findaproperty, primelocation and rightmove.  I don't want to discourage you but I don't think you'll have a huge of amount of 2 bedroom properties to choose from in that price range in areas like Chiswick, Kew and Richmond. 

If you can push your budget to £1500, that would be better, but by keeping a sharp eye out you might find a two bedroom for £1200 in Kew.  This place is absolutely crawling with small children, and we have an abundance of parks, activities and schools, not to mention the Mothercare store where Hugh Grant bought a car seat in the movie "About a Boy".  

Here are the local estate agents (listed alphabetically):

http://www.antonyroberts.co.uk/
http://www.featherstoneleigh.co.uk/
http://www.hallettsestateagentskew.com/
http://www.priorymanagement.com/

Good luck with your move!

I don't want to discourage you but I don't think you'll have a huge of amount of 2 bedroom properties to choose from in that price range in areas like Chiswick, Kew and Richmond. 

Never mind that, we are not too picky. As long as we find something reasonably comfortable and okay, we 'll be good to go. The #1 priority is the school. Thanks for the heads up though!

@lanikai - Awesome, will try to push but we don't want to strech ourselves too much. The local estate agents listings definitely helps us in understanding how far our rental £s will go. "...we have an abundance of parks, activities and schools .." - sounds fairly close to what we have in mind! And thanks for raising our general awareness level about the area indeed.