Where to live in Elgin & surrounding area?

Happydaze

Hi,
We're looking for advice please and hopefully you can come up with some ideas for us to start our search. Not being familiar with the area, where would be a good spot to relocate to in Elgin & surrounding are. We have two kids (11 & 5) so we would need to look at good schools, activities for them eg clubs, swimming etc. Somewhere with lots going on in the commiunity??? Any ideas?

Thanks in advance.

macchicken

It depends what you are looking for (town or rural location, neither is really that far apart) ,and where you will be working? Getting home through Elgin at 5 o'clock is a nightmare! Try to stay on the same side of the town as you work. Driving through Elgin there are 9 roundabouts in the space of a mile and a half!!!!
There are loads of small villages arround Elgin that have great community sprit. But if you are reliant on a bus service don't go too far out of the town. Rubish, infrequent, unreliable, often non existant bus service!
Elgin its self is ok but avoid the flood areas!
You can PM if you want more info.

nesssie1702

There's a lot of info on the SEPA Website about Flooding, and there's also the "Flood Map", which might be useful for you, wherever you decide on.

http://www.sepa.org.uk/flooding/flood_map/view_the_map.aspx

Happydaze

Thanks for the info - especially about the flooding!! Once we have visited the area and had a look around then if you don't mind I may pm you for some advice. At the moment I think probably just outside Elgin would be our preference - have heard Fochabers is a nice place to live but again......flooding!!!

macchicken

Yeah Pm me for more info.
Fochabers doesn't usually suffer much flooding unless you are really near the spey.
There are clubs and organisations in Fochabers for kids (especially sports)
Best thing to do is when you are there are go into the local shop (there are a few on the main street) and look at the notice boards and speak to the ladies in the shop and ask them questions.

Buy 'The Norther Scot' for info about the areas. Or if you are going further east 'The Banffshire Hearld'

scottish_mags

Hi, Iv'e lived in Elgin for more than 30 years now, it is a nice place to live with friendly people. plenty supermarkets but not great shopping, we usually go to Inverness !! Check out the elgin property centre for houses to buy and to get an idea of prices.Also ''the Northern Scot'' the local weekly paper should give you a ''feel'' of the place.Let me know if there is anything else I can help with.

finnieston

I'd I've thought a chance to live near the seaside should be investigated.
Not much to base a life on but there is a mad beach bridge at Lossiemouth.
I'm sure Burghhead gets the wind from two directions.
Is not the housing is held together by sheer willpower at Findhorn?
I've always found it big sky in Moray at the seaside.

Boozer

scottish_mags wrote: »

Check out the elgin property centre for houses to buy and to get an idea of prices.Also ''the Northern Scot'' .

Please dont base any decision on the Northern Scot, i find the online version terrible and only updates a couple of storys, and the housing section must be one of the most pathetic efforts, my nephew could do better.

For housing, the usual rightmove and spcmoray.com are the best places to look.

Good luck with the move.

cons

i would say Lossiemouth or Hopeman

me and the girlfriend go to Hopeman once a year as her granny has a static caravan and the place and people are fantastic

Happydaze

Its taken until now for a confirmed job offer so it now looks as though we will be moving in March. Area we need to concentrate on is Elgin/Fochabers/Keith so that OH is not too far away from work. What are the schools like? I've had a look online and can't really find any bad points (apart from the look of some of the school buildings!!) Does anyone have first hand experience of local schools as thats probably more helpful. Property for sale seems to be few and far between - I think we will be looking at centres of towns and villages so that kids are not always dependant on being "run places."
Hoping to come up this weekend for our first good scout about so all reccommendations and advice appreciated!!

Thanks x

Miss_Cinnabon

you will need to decide do you want to live in a town or a village?

vilages you will be reliant on buses if you dont drive, not much to do either so you will need to travel to get places, we live 12-14 miles from elgin and this is our nearest place for proper shopping, cinema etc

although aberdeen/inverness is preferred for clothes shopping etc

elgin i dont know about the schools there or fochabers, my husband used to live in keith so could give you few pointers there if you wanted

i would say every town/village is great, friendly people etc

best to make a list, what you want, how far from shops you want to be, what you want from a school etc

my kids go to a fantastic school, to me and to others it is the best school around, before it used to be the school that kids went to before they went to boarding school and still is i think, although it may be too far from where you want to be though, nice and quiet place really:D

always happy to be pm'ed if you want furthur info etc