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If you could live anywhere in the UK where would you choose?

place to discuss doing things round and about the UK or to ask advice about other locations
AleisterCrowley
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Re: If you could live anywhere in the UK where would you choose?

#100521

Postby AleisterCrowley » December 1st, 2017, 1:31 pm

It's a good rumour to spread though, might deter some of the South East downsizers/retirees from moving to Shropshire.
I'm thinking about capturing a few and imprisoning them in a giant wicker man along with some sacrificial chickens and goats, just so they get the message...

redsturgeon
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Re: If you could live anywhere in the UK where would you choose?

#100523

Postby redsturgeon » December 1st, 2017, 1:33 pm

AleisterCrowley wrote:It's a good rumour to spread though, might deter some of the South East downsizers/retirees from moving to Shropshire.
I'm thinking about capturing a few and imprisoning them in a giant wicker man along with some sacrificial chickens and goats, just so they get the message...


I still have dreams of Britt Eckland...

John

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Re: If you could live anywhere in the UK where would you choose?

#101059

Postby bungeejumper » December 3rd, 2017, 2:44 pm

Stonge wrote:Also there are often annual invasions by 'travellers' who burglarise empty properties making holidays during certain months very unwise.

Haven't seen that sort of thing for twenty years now, although I do agree that it used to be a 'thing' in the south west. And we live right in the crop-circle belt, within an hour's drive of Glastonbury.

Londoners would rent out their houses for the summer and hit the road in a grotty van, annoying the hell out of everybody with their litter and their all-day Special Brew habits and their all-night rave parties. Most were harmless enough beyond that, although there were certainly some hard nuts among them, and some of those were into organised crime. Drugs yes, stolen goods yes, guns allegedly. But I never heard of extortion?

A favourite tactic around these parts was to "steam" the village store by filling it with fifty travellers on a quiet Tuesday afternoon when there was only one part-timer at the till. One of them would distract her while the other 49 would make off with everything they could carry, and by the time the plods had arrived they were in the next county. :( But that's all been gone for twenty years or more, and a good thing too. CCTV and ANPR, plus a better co-ordinated police response, have sorted the problem. The only extortion we see nowadays is the price of cream teas in the tourist hotspots. (This is Cranford and Lark Rise country - they filmed Candleford just up the road.) Oh, and did I mention the inflated cost of rural taxis? ;)

BJ

richfool
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Re: If you could live anywhere in the UK where would you choose?

#107356

Postby richfool » January 2nd, 2018, 1:35 pm

I just stumbled across the thread. Very interesting.

My background and career moves, took me from London to Bristol back in the 70's and then subsequently into Wiltshire, and finally Exeter, before a period of years in the Far East before finally returning to South Dorset.

My thoughts on those locations:-

Bristol had a city's amenities, but the bus service was poor and road routes congested. Good fast rail service to London.

Living in mid Wiltshire whilst healthy with great scenery and walking country and historic sites, it was a bit far from anywhere and from decent road and rail links.

Exeter, as a small city I liked. Good motorway and main line rail links, though a bit far from London and major airports. Summer traffic congestion is well known, as well as traffic congestion getting into the city. House prices jumped up in late 90's partly due to relocation of Met Office down there. There is a local rail line from Exmouth into Exeter that provides a useful local commuter route and avoids needing to drive into the city. Hospital did seem a bit stretched.

Upon returning from overseas I looked at Exeter, Bournemouth & Poole Bay, Dorchester and Weymouth. I avoided Portsmouth and Southampton, though nearer to London and major airports.

Exeter property prices had gone up a lot and it was far from London and major airports. Bournemouth & Poole one overly-big conurbation, with too many houses and burglaries, though conveniently on the main line from London.

I found Dorchester, small, with limited choice of properties and not much to do. Weymouth, the end of the rail line, is bigger than Dorchester and has more of interest and to do, though quiet in the winter. Property prices lower than Dorchester and Poole Bay, though the road and rail network then gets a bit too tedious beyond Poole, as well as traffic congestion around Weymouth. (3 hrs to London by train).

That's about journey's end for me.

swill453
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Re: If you could live anywhere in the UK where would you choose?

#107365

Postby swill453 » January 2nd, 2018, 2:02 pm

richfool wrote:That's about journey's end for me.

Did I miss the bit where you actually say which town you chose?

Scott.

redsturgeon
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Re: If you could live anywhere in the UK where would you choose?

#107374

Postby redsturgeon » January 2nd, 2018, 2:18 pm

swill453 wrote:
richfool wrote:That's about journey's end for me.

Did I miss the bit where you actually say which town you chose?

Scott.


I guess he didn't mind a limited choice and not much to do...

John

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Re: If you could live anywhere in the UK where would you choose?

#107384

Postby richfool » January 2nd, 2018, 2:38 pm

I was trying to avoid actually saying where (as in giving too much info in the public domain). I got to the end of the line, where it's quiet in winter, and, I forgot to add, "windy".

swill453
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Re: If you could live anywhere in the UK where would you choose?

#107388

Postby swill453 » January 2nd, 2018, 2:46 pm

richfool wrote:I was trying to avoid actually saying where (as in giving too much info in the public domain).

Fine, I just thought I'd missed the punchline :-)

Scott.

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Re: If you could live anywhere in the UK where would you choose?

#107396

Postby Dod101 » January 2nd, 2018, 3:07 pm

From choice I do not think I would choose Scotland although there seem to be a few enthusiasts. I was born in Scotland and live there now. Edinburgh is being wrecked by the local Council . It is over crowded with tourists with one festival or another it would seem every month of the year. Currently Princes Street and its Gardens have become some sort of fun fair, no idea why.

The north west of Scotland, particularly Wester Ross is where I like to be or at least used to until somebody had the bright ideas of promoting it as 'one of the great motoring routes of the world' and thereby attracted far more motor transport than the roads and other infrastructure were ever planned for. I now confine my visits there to times when there are no tourists and no midges.

So where would I live? Probably somewhere on the Northumberland coast.

Dod

AleisterCrowley
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Re: If you could live anywhere in the UK where would you choose?

#108087

Postby AleisterCrowley » January 5th, 2018, 11:59 am

A colleague lives in Alnwick, which is very nice. OK, not quite coast, that's be Alnmouth?

dspp
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Re: If you could live anywhere in the UK where would you choose?

#108090

Postby dspp » January 5th, 2018, 12:32 pm

richfool wrote:I was trying to avoid actually saying where (as in giving too much info in the public domain). I got to the end of the line, where it's quiet in winter, and, I forgot to add, "windy".


Dorchester is where the things to do are. Weymouth is where the things to avoid are. Unless you like the wind in which case Weymouth has the best and cheapest sailing on the south coast. Now Charlestown just outside Dorchester is a carbuncle where the vernacular seems to have ossified in about 1900 but the shoddy materials mean that half the place is already falling down. We prefer to send the Chelsea & Kensington set there to keep them from cluttering up the real town.

- dspp

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Re: If you could live anywhere in the UK where would you choose?

#108272

Postby forrado » January 6th, 2018, 6:33 am

The resort of New Brighton on the north-eastern tip of the Wirral Peninsula. Go any further and one is paddling in the Irish Sea. Claims to have the longest promenade in the UK at slightly more than 2-mile (3.2km) in length. While designated as forming part of the larger urbanisation of Wallasey, New Brighton very much has a self-contained Victorian seaside resort feel about the location. Being that during the latter half of the 19th century, New Brighton developed as a very popular seaside resort serving Liverpool and the Lancashire industrial towns. Which meant that the public transport infrastructure had to be able to cope during peak times. Which it still does to this day thanks to the electrified Merseyrail link from the centre of New Brighton to Birkenhead and Liverpool and beyond. Indeed, from the 1880s until the World War I, New Brighton was one of the regular destinations for the Bass Brewery Excursions, when fifteen trains would take 8-to-9,000 employees of Bass's Burton brewery on an annual trip to the seaside.

That part of the river Mersey and the resort were described by noted English diarist Francis Kilvert in 1872 as: "crowded with vessels of all sorts moving up and down the river, ships, barques, brigs, brigantines, schooners, cutters, colliers, tugs, steamboats, lighters, "flats", everything from the huge emigrant liner steamship with four masts to the tiny sailing and rowing boat … At New Brighton there are beautiful sands stretching for miles along the coast and the woods wave green down to the salt water's edge. The sands were covered with middle class Liverpool folks and children out for a holiday."

To this day if one sits on one of the benches close to Fort Perch Rock for long enough one can see at close quarters any type of shipping, from a tug boat to the Isle of Man ferry, sailing out or into the Port of Liverpool. Though, in the winter it can get a bit wet and windy for such dedicated shipping watchers.

Throughout the 1960s and 70s New Brighton got itself a poor reputation as the resort went into decline that mirrored the industrial decline of Liverpool and surrounding Merseyside. It wasn’t until the 90s and 00s that the slow and gradual ‘gentrification’ (if one wants to call it that) began to take place. Some say an important catalyst was the publication in 1985 of New Brighton: The Last Resort, a portfolio of photographs in book form, by documentary photographer Martin Parr that attracted both praise and criticism in equal measure as a snapshot of Thatcherite Britain.

For Martin Parr’s The Last Resort go to …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJxeztV9few

One might also want to read “Martin Parr on his Infamous Photo Series, The Last Resort” at …
http://www.anothermag.com/art-photography/8073/martin-parrs-last-resort

While not considered as 'posh' or as genteel (some might even say stuck-up) as the not too far away seaside town of Southport, New Brighton at its roots still remains as working class as it was intended to be.

UncleEbenezer
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Re: If you could live anywhere in the UK where would you choose?

#108430

Postby UncleEbenezer » January 6th, 2018, 10:35 pm

Well, the places I've enjoyed most are Cambridge (but the student life isn't really a fair comparison to anything else), Bath (until I fell victim to the Mafia), and Sheffield (academic life again, though not as student).

My ideal place offers the combination of city life - such as music, theatres, restaurants - and great countryside I can reach by walking out of my front door. If I have to use any wheeled transport to get out to walking country, that ruins it. In my youth, that was different: I think I'd have enjoyed London if I could have afforded it, though Bristol was a bit disappointing despite being more affordable.

As I get older I've been getting resigned to a lesser city life, and value open country all the more. If they haven't abolished free bus passes by the time I reach that age, I shall be ideally suited to a market town with some life and good transport connections, in open country offering walking, cycling and (in season) swimming. Such as those in, or on the edges of, many of our national parks. Here in Devon offers that, though if starting from scratch there are places in Scotland or Yorkshire I might prefer.

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Re: If you could live anywhere in the UK where would you choose?

#108740

Postby bungeejumper » January 8th, 2018, 12:12 pm

Bath has any number of mafias. You just choose your own. ;)

There's the estate agent mafia, which cranks up property prices (and rents) till the pain becomes unbearable. The First Great Western mafia, which has now seen the price of a season ticket to Paddington passing eight thousand quid. (For a crap service where the much-hyped new fast electric system has been abandoned.) There's the university, high on a distant hill, which pays its vice-chancellor four times as much as the Prime Minister.

There's the traffic warden mafia, which regards anyone who doesn't understand small print on the parking restriction signs (and yes, that's nearly all the tourists) as fair game for a ticket. There's the satnav industry, which will try to send you over Pulteney Bridge even though it will probably cost you a £60 ticket if you're not a taxi. And there's the culture mafia, which somehow forgets that Bath doesn't have a proper concert venue, still less a proper orchestra. (Have bumped into Ken Loach, though, what an amazing guy.)

But heck, the buzz is still something else. After nearly forty years of living around Bath, I can still walk down Southgate and be surrounded by thousands of people who are having a good time. That lifts the soul in ways that nothing else can emulate. And the architecture, my god. And the Roman Baths is absolutely the best visitor attraction in Britain.

Me, I live in a village six miles/15 minutes/one short train journey away. Best of all worlds. :D

PS: useful/pretty accurate write-up at http://www.commuterguide.co.uk/counties ... lNcRuQiGzk

BJ

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Re: If you could live anywhere in the UK where would you choose?

#108743

Postby richfool » January 8th, 2018, 12:27 pm

dspp wrote:
Dorchester is where the things to do are.
Weymouth is where the things to avoid are. Unless you like the wind in which case Weymouth has the best and cheapest sailing on the south coast. Now Charlestown just outside Dorchester is a carbuncle where the vernacular seems to have ossified in about 1900 but the shoddy materials mean that half the place is already falling down. We prefer to send the Chelsea & Kensington set there to keep them from cluttering up the real town.

- dspp

dspp, Could you elaborate on what the things are to do in Dorchester? We do visit, but usually only for the shops. I'm aware of the redeveloped Brewery area, the Dorchester and Tutankhamen museums and a few interesting cafes in some of the alleyways.

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Re: If you could live anywhere in the UK where would you choose?

#108750

Postby dspp » January 8th, 2018, 12:44 pm

Depends what you prefer, but the music scene is better in Dorch, ditto restaurants, ditto museums, films (and film socs, that is v active in Dorch). In a year or so there will be a theatre as well. Local youth head to Dorch rather than Weymouth, and so do older folk.

If there was stuff of interest in Weymouth I'd head down there. In fact I do go there for the sailing and the occasional concerts (Duncan Honeybourne runs a lunchtime series*) but more of this stuff is in Dorch than Weymouth. Most of Weymouth is organised to suit the Summer chav trade, and the winter left-behinds (uck), and as a Bournemouth/Poole dormitory town. The district council finances are as they are for a reason ! Oh and the local schools ....

That's my observation from having lived in Dorset for 25-years spread over about 50-years. Both out in various of the villages and in Dorchester. YMMV. By the way my view is that Exeter is the better city to head to rather than Bmth/Poole for most things, when you want a city.

If particular things interest you please feel to PM me and I can see if my memory banks help you. Entirely up to you.

regards, dspp

* but he also is active outside Wey inc some that I run. In that vein Sherborne also is worth paying attention to for the festival.

[edit. The Tut museum and the two others, the teddy bear and the commercial dino one are purely for scamming the tourist trade and the school trip trade. The Dorch museum is the real deal. It is about to have a huge redevelopment. It has Dippy in it right now, first visit outside London and that is for a good reason]

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Re: If you could live anywhere in the UK where would you choose?

#108759

Postby bungeejumper » January 8th, 2018, 1:16 pm

dspp wrote:Most of Weymouth is organised to suit the Summer chav trade, and the winter left-behinds (uck), and as a Bournemouth/Poole dormitory town. The district council finances are as they are for a reason !

Ahh, the last time I was in Weymouth I got moved on by the police. I was down there on my motorbike, having made the glorious winding journey across the downs from Yeovil direction (Cerne Abbas and all that) - and dammit, the local Hell's Angels chapter had decided to arrive on the same day. :evil:

Couldn't find a parking place in Dorchester either, so I never got the chance to explore the place. Never mind, their loss, my gain. I got back on the bike and discovered the Jurassic Coast, just to the west. Beer, Branscombe, Lyme Regis etc kept my new missus and her two kids happy and intrigued for many years. Glorious memories. Must get back there some day. :)

BJ

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Re: If you could live anywhere in the UK where would you choose?

#108780

Postby tea42 » January 8th, 2018, 2:24 pm

I must be one of tne Weymouth chavs. Love the pubs. One or two poncy restaurants. The always absent "NO MOORING ALONGSIDE" Harbourmaster that was obviously trained by the Third Reich. The trawler race not be be missed where you can easily get covered in wet sticky flour is a great laugh. Ice creams and fishnchips on the beach with my grandkids enjoying the Punch and Judy. A real seaside gem... Love Wemouth!

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Re: If you could live anywhere in the UK where would you choose?

#108805

Postby dspp » January 8th, 2018, 3:54 pm

tea42 wrote:I must be one of tne Weymouth chavs. Love the pubs. One or two poncy restaurants. The always absent "NO MOORING ALONGSIDE" Harbourmaster that was obviously trained by the Third Reich. The trawler race not be be missed where you can easily get covered in wet sticky flour is a great laugh. Ice creams and fishnchips on the beach with my grandkids enjoying the Punch and Judy. A real seaside gem... Love Wemouth!


Like I said t42 it does depend what you prefer. Personally I prefer Dorch most of the time. YMMV.

(I don't think you are being fair to the Harbourmaster btw)

regards, dspp

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Re: If you could live anywhere in the UK where would you choose?

#109479

Postby Paultry » January 11th, 2018, 1:34 pm

It is true, Bath has many pleasant qualities, but commuter traffic is now becoming overwhelming.

I have an aerial photo of a street near Alexandra park taken on a Monday morning in June 2000.

Besides the recycling truck there are just two or three vehicles parked.

Today there are basically no parking spots free, due to commuter traffic.

If it were that simple. Evenings and weekends are also a problem, simply due to the number of cars that householders possess.

It is likely that restricted parking will be introduced, so a fee will be paid, but the parking situation may not alter.

Paul


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