Moving to Bristol

V_Chic_Chick

You'll also want to be avoiding Easton. The police managed to push some of the drugs out of St Pauls and they just moved to Easton.

Wings

I both own and rent out flats in the Clifton and Redland area of Bristol, and if the original poster enjoys an active social life, then a flat in these locations could be right for him. Although like other posters have stated, both parking, car crime and students would I believe put off the average quiet family man.

Also communicating between Clifton and Victoria Street in peak rush hour would be a nightmare, therefore my recommendations would be Bedminster (BS3), Ashton, Totterdown and St. Annes, all in walking distance to Victoria Street, Bristol Broadmead Shopping Centre, Bristol Temple Mead Rail Station and Bristol’s busy nightlife of clubs, bars and the theatres.

One should be able to rent a one bed flat in these areas for about £500-95, and a two bed terraced house for about £600-95

http://www.multimap.com/map/browse.cgi?client=public&search_result=&db=pc&lang=&keepicon=true&pc=BS3&advanced=&client=public&addr2=&quicksearch=BS3&addr3=&addr1=

Savvy_Sue

magyar wrote:

One other possibility, although it's also a little on the rough side, is Montpelier which is quite bohemian. Although if you can afford it the other areas are nicer: maybe popping into places like Montpelier for a curry...

Just don't even go INTO St Paul's. Not even for a look!

I defy you to tell the OP where Montpelier ends and St Pauls begins.

DH and I work in St Pauls, I have done for 7 years, first at the Broadmead end, now at the 'other' end. Yes there are problems, and I'm not sure I'd want to live there, and there are bits of it I advise my teenage sons not to walk through on their own, BUT it is not as bad as people make out. I wouldn't advise anyone to go 'just for a look' - what are you looking for? / at? - but we've had more problems with damage to our car in the polite suburb where we live than we do in St Pauls where we park the car all day. Plus the CCTV coverage is quite intense ...

Agree about those flats at 5102 - ridiculous name, ridiculous location, and right now next door to the building site that was Broadmead and we must now learn to call Cabot ...

If you're working near BTM, then I would strongly advise looking at somewhere on a train route. The Severn Beach line runs through Clifton and heads up into the NW of the city, but there are a couple of other 'suburban' lines which go to BTM. Failing that, using the Park and Ride services is usually a better bet than the 'regular' buses, which are overpriced and unreliable to the point of laughability. The trains are not frequent on the Severn Beach line, but it's cheaper than the bus.

Remember if you're cycling to BTM, it will be uphill all the way home ...

Lovely city, never intending to move again, myself!

Savvy_Sue

V_Chic_Chick wrote:

I have to agree about the whole don't-even-think-about-going-into-St-Pauls bit though. There are more pimps than you can shake a stick at, plus a massive drug problem. There's a girl in my year at school whose dad used to own the infamous black and white cafe there, before the police got a court order to pull it down. He was on the local news about it when they pulled it down. Which is how they got the money for an Audi TT and her private education. She's been seen more than once hanging around on the streets of St Pauls more than once too.

Things change. The B&W cafe has been replaced by some very attractive looking housing. I don't think we've had the firework battles running the length of that road for a couple of years now. I don't know where you get your information about the number of pimps in the area: you might be surprised at how much 'independent' working there is. Yes there are drugs easily available (or so I've been told, no-one's ever offered me any, or propositioned me, come to that) but its reputation is worse than it deserves to be these days.

And give the girl a break, if she lives or used to live in St Pauls where's she supposed to hang out?

Emmylou_2

I live in Clifton Village and love it. There may be a lot of students around here but they don't cause any problems (I've lived in "Studenty" areas before and they've been hell).

It's a 15 minute walk to Park Street and then probably another 15 minutes to Victoria Street (depending on which end you are!) and lots of people walk in Bristol, which is nice. The bus goes from Clifton to Temple Meads and is £1.30 (single).

The nice thing about Clifton Village is there's plenty to do here without having to go far - the suspension bridge is spectacular, the zoo is fabulous and there's loads of nice shops and bars...

Savvy_Sue

The OP did ask about supermarkets in their first post. Funnily enough, finding a supermarket was one of the hardest things I found when we first moved!

I moved from a town where there was a large Tesco one side of town, a large Sainsbury's the other, a small Sainsbury's in the High Street and nothing else apart from corner shops. And I easily found in Bristol corner shops and medium sized supermarkets - Coop, Somerfield, Aldi, Lidl etc etc etc. Even a couple of small Sainsburys. But I couldn't seem to find a large supermarket within what I considered a reasonable distance! And I couldn't get everything I wanted in the smaller supermarkets.

I don't know WHY I couldn't find them, but it made me feel very unsettled initially. I hated going to the huge Asda at Cribbs because it was far too big for me. For while I settled on a Tesco (Golden Hill) but I've since boycotted that. There are a lot more Tesco Express and Metro stores popping up all over the place, and a few more mini-Sainsburys. So don't write an area off until you've checked with the neighbours where they know of: some of the supermarkets hide from newcomers, I'd swear!

There is of course no substitute for coming to stay and having a good look round beforehand. It's probably particularly important to look at an area where you might want to live after dark as well as in daylight!

Oh, and DH confirms that St Pauls is a lot less problematic than it used to be. He hasn't been approached for a very long time!

tomstickland

If I had to chose a place to live in Bristol then I'd opt for Clifton, Redcliffe or Westbury on Trym. I'd consider somewhere in the centre too.

St Pauls has a name, but it's not that bad IMO. I once had a funny experience, totally drunk, sat in one the squares in st pauls, eating a takeaway and noticing a lot of dodgy looking men around, think we were upsetting some pimps.

Bedminster and the like are on the up, but nothing beats Clifton or White Ladies road IMO.

From what I've seen, there's a massive BTL 1 bed flat market in Bristol. I had a work colleague who rented some amazing apartments for not a lot of money.

Tondella

Thanks to everyone who has posted so far, it looks like Bristol has a lot to offer. Our main priority in finding a flat is somewhere that is within easy commute of Victoria St, preferably by walking or with a good bus route on stand-by. Some of the posters have recommended park and ride, or living near a train line. I'm a bit concerned about the price of a season rail ticket, plus horrified to see on the news this morning all the problems with Great Western rail commuting - are the same issues faced by local services in and around Bristol?

Our next priority is living somewhere with a bit of a community, I loved living in central manchester, but you do suffer from having to share your local supermarket/cafe with all the city workers and all the shoppers - prices inevitably go up and the supermarket range tends to be geared towards ready meals etc. So living near a smaller high street with a couple of local amenities would be great.

We don't really need a garden or anything and it's unlikely that we will be buying as OH's job takes us around the country every couple of years and when we do settle down we're going to be heading to Lancashire for the hills. So we're looking to rent in the £650-700 bracket.

We're not massive socialites, and are more likely to take advantage of amenities during the day (ie cafes) rather than be in need of a local pub at night. It would be nice to have a couple of restaurants and maybe a cinema nearby. I don;t want to live somewhere that is noisy by night which is why when i heard that whiteladies road was called "the strip" i panicked a bit!

How studenty is Clifton? For anyone who knows them - I have lived in Lenton, Nottingham and Fallowfield, Manchester - are we talking that kind of studenty or a bit less in your face studenty?

We're actually only going to move to Bristol in august and are planning to take a couple of days off in July for flat hunting, although we'll be in the Bristol neck of the woods next month and might pop by for a look around. Having looked at some flats online I'm so excited - you get so much more for your money and it looks like a wonderful place!

tomstickland

White Ladies road is active at night, but as soon as you're a street or two away from it then it's pretty quiet.

Tondella

tomstickland wrote:

White Ladies road is active at night, but as soon as you're a street or two away from it then it's pretty quiet.

Thanks Tom, lovin' your sig, we're mighty mighty boosh fans too