Areas to buy/avoid near Selby/York - advice please

sotaxing

Looking to relocate from Midlands and not sure where to look exactly!

Any advice re: nice areas/schools would be great! Plus any to avoid.

Forgotten how daunting this move stuff is!

Thanks.

Dave_Q

Secondary scoools in York are generally good. Two excellent comprehensives are Huntington (North) and Fulford (South). Worth considering a purchase within the catchment areas of either.

Melissa177

Tang Hall estate, near Heslington.

It's full of students, and it's a bit dodgy! (I should know, I used to live there when I was a student).

Heslington is very nice, although still studenty, as is Fulford & Huntingdon.

I also liked Bishopsthorpe, very quiet and serene. It is south of York.

pusscat

Selby itself is a place to avoid IMHO, but it depends what you are after....and your budget! A friend of mine was a teacher there and her advice is "avoid the schools".

There is rural and town in the areas you are looking, so it depends on what you need and how much money you want to spend- but here are a few suggestions....

York itself is generally fine - there are a few areas best avoided, but they are mainly listed in the posts above.

The triangle between the A64 anfd the A19 is OK - some of the villages are quite nice, but some are old mining villages with a real "attitude problem".You really need to spend some time in the place to really find out. Some villages to the south side also have great views of the power stations - check out on an OS map before you go and look at houses! There are good links into York and Leeds by train, but in my opinion this area has got a bit big for it's boots in terms of prices - for the money that many people are asking in this area now, you could live in a far nicer area such as Harrogate, Wetherby, Knaresborough and to the East of York along the A1079. This area is now prommoted as part of the "goldent triangle" (draw a triangle from York to Leeds and Harrogate) but it is not really -and everyone local knows it..

North of the A64 and you are into real "golden traingle area - pricey, but nice!

The triangle between the A1079 and the A19 is a nicer area IMHO - some nice rural villages and a few small towns which are nice. Easy commuting into York - A1079 can be busy though. Cross country to Selby about 20-25 mins - Pocklington is a nice town but can be pricey compared to the other ones. Pocklington has a good state schools (both junior and secondary) and also a well thought of private school and one of the top Montessori schools in the country. Market Weighton is a bit further from Selby/York - is is a bit more down market than Pocklington, but still OK. The school there has a poorer reputation though. Stamford Bridge is a nice large village (has a traffic problem though) There is a campaign to upgrade the A1079 to a dual carraigeway to make it faster, also to reopen the old railway line from Beverley to York - would make a huge difference to commuting.

If you are looking for Leeds/Selby commuting then Howden railway station is direct into Leeds (via Selby)- the parking is free and anywhere within 20 mins drive is an easy daily commute. Howden is also nice as a small town - next to the M62 so good transport links, some nice villages around it. Again, make sure you speak to some people in the village first though .....

Avoid anything too close to Goole - some of the villages are Ok, but you need to be careful - check out the village carefully first - some are still stuck inthe stone age in terms of attitudes (such as working women and anyone not born and bred in Yorkshire!)

Bubwith, Elvington, Wheldrake and Holme on Spalding Moor are nice areas - larger villages, they are much smaller than Pocklington etc but are worth a look.

Tadcaster is supposed to be nice (don't know it personally) and the villages around Sherburn are all OK - Leeds commuter belt villages - but many don't really have much life - dormitory villages where everyone is away during the day in some cases.

South of Selby along the M62 is usually with a view of a power station - according to one of my neighbours who lived in Hemingbrough the area is just really wierd - old mining villages where the house prices have shot up, but the attitudes remain back in the 1940's somewhere.

Anyhting that is getting too close to Castleford and Pontefract is also best avoided.

If you can tell me a bit about what you are after I may be able to point you somewhere more directly....

Sorry if anybody lives in the areas I have said to avoid - just my personal thoughts.....

Puss
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amboy

I have lived in York all my life and just have to applaud pusscats post
you wont go far wrong in analysing the post carefully.

julie88_2

really enjoyed this thread on york and surrounding area took me right back
to my roots I lived on Thief lane untill I was 18 and before that in Waverly st
close to the Minster. Had a few school friends from Tanghall lane and my old
school was in fifth avenue


regards julie88

pusscat

amboy wrote: »

I have lived in York all my life and just have to applaud pusscats post
you wont go far wrong in analysing the post carefully.

Thanks :beer:

I moved up to the York area a couple of years ago from "down South" and as I knew nothing about the area I had to do a lot of asking around - that post is just the benefit of what people told me at the time.....

The York area is a great place to live - I would not be anywhere aelse now!

Puss

sotaxing

Wow - thanks for such great info pusscat - that has really got me thinking.

Had been looking at villages but you've got me thinking a bit - can I ask - how did you suss out the attitudes so well from just talking to a few locals? I've found these sort of things hard to find out in the past until I've moved in somewhere ( and by then it's too late!).

Really looking for somewhere with good school/sixth form and not too remote/small but fairly open to ideas within york/selby area.

Howden sounds quite good - may take a look round there - any particular villages to speak to people in? Can you get from Howden to York on public transport?

Like the idea of York but seems quite expensive - what's traffic like towards Selby area in rushhour?

Just doing the usual inner arguement - bigger house in certain areas v smaller house in good one!

pusscat

I would suggest Howden, Pocklington or Holme upon Spalding Moor as places to start then....none of the villages have their own secondary school or sixth form - the kids are all bussed in to a town somewhere.

If you check out the league tables on the BBC news website then Woldgate College in Pocklington comes out pretty well - it is a school and sixth form.
There is also a pretty good private/boarding school in Pock - they also have a sixth form and day pupils.

Links into York from Pocklington are good - busses about every hour or so. Driving outside of rush hour is about 20 mins to York - in rush hour can be more like 40 mins.
Pocklington itself is big enough for most day to day needs - medical centre, dentists, vets, high street, 2 supermarkets, lots of specialist shops (bakers, butchers, chemists etc). Also has a leisure centre, couple of nice restaurants, an arts centre (with a small cinema) all within walking distance which is great. Howden railway station is 20mins drive accross country - straight into Leeds or Hull. Free parking and return to Leeds is about £7 a day.

Howden is a bit smaller than Pocklington - it has all the usual day to day needs too, including some restaurants and pubs - everything else can be found in Goole or Selby (neither are particularly upmarket places IYKWIM). It is 5 mins to the M62 - about 1- 1.5 hours drive into Leeds in rush hour, 30 mins outside of it.
I don't know Howden schools at all, but I am sure it is fairly reasonable.
The station is about 5-10mins drive outside of the town. Howden has the reputation of being a little rougher than Pocklington - especially at night, but compared to a city it is nothing really - just a few kids who have had a few too many...housing in Howden is about 20% cheaper than Pocklington IMHO.

Holme on Spalding Moor is a bit smaller than both of the other two - large village really - it has a doctors, chemists, bakers, pubs and a few other small shops, but you need to go to Pocklington, Howden or elsewhere to get anything else. The kids from HOSM go to either Woldgate in Pocklington or Market Weighton School - MW seems to be the main one. MW school is a lot lower than Woldgate in the league tables and had a reputation for being badly run - they seem to have got on top of this now and discipline has improved. It does have a sixth form - or the kids go to Beverley/York if they are looking to do vocational courses.
HOSM is cheaper than Pock too - I guess about the same as Howden.

Villages around Howden - I have been told that Hemingbrough is one to avoid - and most of the villages to the West of Howden have great power station views so not for me..I did look at some properties south of the M62, Laxton and Blacktoft - these seemed like nice villages but I never really got in too deep as they were a bit rural for us at the time. Villages to the north seem to be a lot better - between Howden and Bubwith. Basically the advice I was given was to go north of the A163 and west of the A19. If you are going south of the A163 then keep to the west of the B128.

Basically the main villages to avoid seem to be the old mining villages - so check out if there is/was a mine in the area.

In general the market here is a bit frothy at the moment - I keep an eye on the £400k - £600k area and not a lot is selling - or at least not at the asking price. Anything that is a really good property that is reasonably priced is selling pretty quickly - the other stuff is sat on the market for a long time until it is reduced or taken off.

When we moved up here I had some advantages - Mr P had lived in the area previously so we knew some people, also we have family up here and I like talking to people....

Puss

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