Anyone in St. Albans?

Hi-

UK hubbie and I just returned from a week visit in the London area.  We are looking at moving to St. Albans in Sept. for my hubbie to start his master's.  I really enjoyed the area and it looks like it is way more affordable than parts of London- but still within commutable range.

I was wondering if anyone one might currently live there?  It looks like we could rent a nice little flat for between 650-750 pounds.  This amount sounds quite pleasant to me as hubbie will only be able to work part time and we will probably be living on between 30,000 to 40,000 pounds a year.

Does anyone know how much travel to King's Cross be via the Thameslink?  Also, how much does council tax run on a flat that costs about 750 pounds?

Thanks in advance!
-Karen

hiya Karen,
not sure if this will be much help to you, but me and Sean (my other half) lived in St Albans before we moved to Bedfordshire. we lived in a 2 bedroom flat (1 double bedroom, 1 single) for £800 a month, our council tax for something in the range of £1,100 a year (give or take some, i dont have the old bills to hand). they have a good web page that might be able to help you out too - http://www.stalbans.gov.uk.  i dont know about the train prices, but if you have a look on http://www.nationalrail.co.uk - you might be able to find some prices

i did enjoy living in St Albans, the market there on wednesdays and saturdays is great, the cathedral is my favourite that i've ever seen and the park is always nice for a sunday afternoon walk.

good luck!!:)

Sorry, I'm not in St. Albans, but just wanted to pipe up and say what a lovely place it is! You're very lucky! The cathedral is indeed spectacular and the market is fab. There's also an awesome and very large second-hand bookshop. They had a lovely resident cat which, sadly, passed on a year or so ago. It's a wonderful place to spend an afternoon, cat or no cat! Lucky you.

Thanks for the responses!  Council tax is a bit higher than I was hoping for, but I think I have to prepare myself for all taxes in England being more than I think they will be.

I didn't have time to go into the Cathedral, but I saw the market while we were there.  Good to know that it is a good place to be!