moving to Milton Keynes (or area) any suggestions?

Caro75

Hi all.
We are thinking of moving to Milton Keynes (or area).
Are there any areas to avoid? We would like to move to
a quietish area also any ideas?
Good schools is a must. Any feedback welcome.

Thanks in advance

Caro

arkonite_babe

Caro, I'm moving this to the England board from the Arms. Think it might be better in there.

a_b

Savvy_Sue

I'm afraid I don't know much about Milton Keynes - although I did spend a week there once it was a long time ago and most of the time I was in a boat or a tent.

But the general advice I gave Bolton Minx about moving to Crewe would apply to anyone, moving anywhere, especially with children - spend time in the place!

And for 'good schools', it's sometimes worth trusting your gut instinct rather than going for the school with the good reputation. I bucked the trend throughout my children's primary school careers by sending them to schools with poor reputations in preference to schools with excellent reputations, simply because the attitude of staff or the facilities failed to live up to the reputation. I never regretted it and my children don't seem to have suffered academically.

It takes a few incidents to give a school a bad reputation which it will then be all but impossible to shake off - I had people telling me why they had taken children out of such and such a school 10 years previously under a different head, yet they still seemed to think this should play a valid part in my decision making process!

Good luck! I never want to move anywhere ever again ...

Former_MSE_Andrea

Hi Caro75

The thing with Milton Keynes is that there's a policy that each estate must have a good mix of housing types so most estates will have both good areas and bad.

Some of the better estates, in my opinion, include Loughton, Willen, Broughton, Milton Keynes village, Woolstone. In terms of schools, a lot of the estate agents' adverts seem to promote properties within the "Denbigh" (pronounced Denby) catchment area. I don't have kids but guess it must be a good school to go to.

Estates to avoid tend to be the ones nearer to CMK (Central Milton Keynes) (although having said that Loughton is still fairly central but nice).

If you can afford somewhere in one of the villages further out (Potterspury, Towcester (pronounced "toaster" , Hanslope etc) go for them.

Andrea

tigs78

I have lived in Milton Keynes for the past ten years. I also work at the police station and this gives me an insight into what is happening on each estate, there are some estates that I personally would not like to live on... Conniburrow, Fishermead, Netherfield, Fullers Slade, Oldbrook, Stacey Bushes. This is not to say that there are not decent families living on these estates but there is a lot of crime and disorder concentrated there. As with all areas there are good and bad. A really useful website is https://www.mkweb.co.uk/housing/home.asp?r=10874 On the right hand side of this web page you can click on each housing estate and it tells you what facilities it has or is near to, what type of housing there is, what school catchment area it is in etc..

Hope this is of help to you

Caro75

First of all, thanks very much all for your advice. It was very helpful.

I have been looking on the net for some properties in MK. And it looks like Monkston and Grange Farm have some nice properties. What can you tell me about these places? Are they OK? Would you live there?

Also, if you had the choice between living on the grid or living in one of the surrounding villages, which one would you choose? And why? I read somewhere that if you can don't move to an area in Milton Keynes which is built on the grid - but they don't say why

Many thanks

Caro

Former_MSE_Andrea

Hi Caro75

I've never heard that said before and it doesn't really leave many alternatives except to buy in Stony Stratford, Bletchley or further afield, one of the surrounding villages or Newport Pagnell.

Just a tip - Bletchley does have improvements planned in the next few years but they're currently building the new Wimbledon/ MK Dons stadium combined with an Asda and Ikea store there so it may be a bit troublesome traffic-wise in the future.

As far as I know Monkston's not bad. It's just a little way from MK's largest Tesco store and is about 5-10 minutes' drive from the centre in one direction and the M1 in the other. It's near Milton Keynes Village and there are a lot of fields around there so would be good for the kids - especially as the cycle paths are good around there. It's also about 10-15 minutes from Woburn Sands (where Johnny Dankworth and Cleo Lanes' The Stables is) and then Woburn Abbey and Park a bit further on.

Grange Farm is the other side of Milton Keynes. It's one of the newer estates in MK. One thing you should know is, it's a couple of minutes' drive from Woodhill prison (where Charles Bronson was - not sure if he's still there).

Savvy_Sue

Caro75 wrote:

I read somewhere that if you can don't move to an area in Milton Keynes which is built on the grid - but they don't say why

Snobbery???

jockettuk

im looking to move to aylesbury in the near future as my other half has moved there.. ive been going up and down and getting to know the area but what might sway me moving is the secondary school system. they have upper schools grammer schools etc and kids have to sit a test in yr 6 of primary schools to decide which school they can be accepted into. this might be the case in mk as they also under buckingham council . this is difficult for me as my daughter is still at her old school in a different county....

dont just look at the primary schools look at the overall picture and why not book a motel mabey the tenner ones that travelodge are doing and go down to milton keynes and get a feel of the place .. thats what we did in aylesbury some lovely houses but horrible neighbours and thats just looking around..

snoobery abt council areas when most of the houses nowadays are ex council. stupid things like that.. make appointments for the estate agents to go around different houses in different areas in your price range and get a good feel for the houses and areas..

good luck

Swattie

Caro,

I moved to MK about 7 yrs ago and did a lot of research at that time will PM you my advice.

Caro75

Thanks Swattie for your pm. I have sent you one as well.

Tomorrow we are going to visit Emerson Valley, New Bradwell, Shenley Brook End, Woolstone, Shenley Lodge, Giffard Park and Downhead Park. We were supposed to look at a property at Neath Hill but an estate agent told us that this wasn't our kind of location!! So we cancelled this one.

We are also planning to visit Willen Park, Kingsmead, Crownhill, Medbourne, Bancroft Park & Monkston.

Have you any comments about these locations? Any feedback welcome

Many thanks

Caro