Where to live in the West Midlands

emmzickle

Sutton Coldfield is a car park in commuting hours (as is much of Birmingham to be honest). I used to live in Sutton Coldfield and a journey of 8 miles to work used to regularly take over an hour. If you listen to the traffic updates on local radio in the morning there are always delays.

Also, Aldridge, Little Aston and Tamworth aren't parts of Sutton Coldfield.

Aldridge is one of the 'nice' places in Walsall (you need to drive out of Sutton through Little Aston to get there). I don't think it would offer you much over Sutton in terms of journey times etc but houses would be cheaper there!

Tamworth is a town north of Sutton Coldfield - I don't know much about it really apart from the retail park (John Lewis there is nice!), the snow dome and the castle!

Little Aston is lovely if you can afford it (lots of footballers, CEOs etc live there).

I would say Four Oaks is probably the nicest area in Sutton Coldfield to live but probably the most expensive.

In terms of town centres Solihull is far better than Sutton Coldfield for shopping. Sutton does have the lovely park though and quite a few good restaurants!

lonestarfan

Tamworth is quite a journey from Rugeley.
Lichfield could be an option. It's not too far to Rugeley from Lichifeld but not sure about Coventry from Lichfield.

1886

I would suggest making sure that wherever you do settle on does'nt involve commuting via the M6.

Warwick, Leamington and Kenilworth are all nice but I don't know how far your budget will go. All are pretty expensive. We rented in central Leamington for three years but could never afford to buy what we wanted there (three bed semi)

Earlsdon is a nice, fashionable area of Coventry and very close to both Uni's. You would get a lot more for your money in Nuneaton & Bedworth but the town centres are'nt great. Leamington is very good for this, Warwick has little to offer although nice for a stroll around. Cheylesmore and Stichall/Stychall are also nice areas of Coventry not far from both Uni's

elsien

easilydistracted wrote: »

Thanks for all your efforts kiddakidda. I've checked out all the distances but I just don't know how much to trust the time estimates on the different websites. After some wriggling around on google maps I found a few bits of the centre and the cinema, will have to explore when I am in Nuneaton this weekend.

Where commuting is concerned, I probably wouldn't trust them at all. A journey last week to the middle of Brum was showing as 35 minutes. In the morning rush hour it took closer to 1 1/2 hours.

easilydistracted

Thanks for the extra ideas. Unfortunately it turns out I hate Solihull, cant afford anything decent and am terrified of the commuting traffic.

1886 wrote: »

I would suggest making sure that wherever you do settle on does'nt involve commuting via the M6.

Warwick, Leamington and Kenilworth are all nice but I don't know how far your budget will go. All are pretty expensive. We rented in central Leamington for three years but could never afford to buy what we wanted there (three bed semi)

Earlsdon is a nice, fashionable area of Coventry and very close to both Uni's. You would get a lot more for your money in Nuneaton & Bedworth but the town centres are'nt great. Leamington is very good for this, Warwick has little to offer although nice for a stroll around. Cheylesmore and Stichall/Stychall are also nice areas of Coventry not far from both Uni's

It seems like everywhere around there has crazy unpredictable traffic and is pretty expensive. Happily after some desperate googling I had chanced upon Earlsdon as somewhere that has the type of old house I love, some independent shops and is bang in the middle of the two locations. It also seems a lot more affordable. Still to visit it but feeling optimistic!

Just as someone else said the obvious choice is Coventry and I realised a lot of the negative I'd heard about Coventry was out of date. It looks like an hour to Rugeley but there is no point ending up with partner's daughter having a rubbish box room for the sake of saving 15 minutes. Fingers crossed!

:money:

kitty_kins

We live in Shirley which is just outside of Solihull. It takes us 20-30 mins to get to Coventry on the M42 and when I used to travel to Stoke-on-Trent it took me approximately 1 hour (not Rugely I know, but still Staffs!)

Shirley is more reasonably priced than Solihull because it is a little further away and is in the middle of a big regeneration. I've lived here most of my life and I love it

Postcode B90 3 covers most of it if you wanted to look it up