Westcliff on Sea

GoncaloPerdigao

Hello, me and my wife we are thinking of buying a house in Westcliff.
We live and work in London. I am a freelancer and I work all around London. Mainly around Soho, Southwark, my wife she has a perm job in the city.
We don't have kids or thinking of having kids, but we are aware that is 4 grammar schools there.

We know that Westcliff is a C2C line that goes straight to Fenchurch Street in 45m, and there are trains every 8/10m.

Our main concern is that we are used to the London lifestyle.
We are aware that we will need to get used to Westcliff, but we afraid that is very quiet and there is nothing to do in the evenings/weekends, eating out, ordering food.

Is there anyone that had moved from London to Westcliff, was it a big change/adaption?

hazyjo

I'm buying in Leigh-on-Sea at the mo - 2 stops up.

Schools nearby are very good from what I've heard. Train to London is busy but fairly reliable. You should be okay getting on at Westcliff though.

You can jump on a train 1 or 2 stops to Chalkwell or Leigh or back the other way to Southend, get a cab, or walk along the seafront when warm enough. There is LOADS to do. Leigh is not just the old cockle sheds near the station and the old town - there's The Broadway and Leigh Road (and a few on London Road) which are FULL of lovely restaurants, bars/pubs, independent shops and TONNES of live music, you have the theatre nearby where you have plays, musicals, comedians, bands, dances/discos, operas and various other productions, nights out, etc. Southend has lots to offer too. Chinnerys has loads of bands too - on the heavier side of rock/punk but some fabulous bands have played there (gutted to be missing Blancmange in a couple of weeks).

There are a number of HMOs in Westcliff so if you're buying something big, just bear that in mind for the rest of the street. The houses are lovely and generally full of character and I do reckon there's a lot of money to be made if buying into the area and in nearby Southend. There's been Japanese Knotweed in the area (Hamlet Court Road) so you might want to mention it to your surveyor.

Good luck. Keep us informed!

hazyjo

PS I'm very much a Londoner at heart and will also be travelling into the City every day. Will still be out lots in London as it's where I see a lot of my friends. Check out return routes as Fenchurch St is sometimes closed due to engineering works and trains may run from Liv St, or head to West Ham and pick up a train there. Some trains are mega slow, so get a timetable and highlight the ones you'd catch so you can refer to it in a rush to avoid the real slow ones.

phatbear

Personally I would give westcliff a bit of a swerve.

The majority of the area isn’t the nicest place around, there are of course a few roads which are ok.

Prices tend to be quite a bit lower than neighbouring towns like leigh/chawkwell/hadleigh/southend etc etc for a reason.

Oh and ive lived in and around southend for the past 40+ years so i know a fair bit about the area.

hazyjo

phatbear wrote: »

Personally I would give westcliff a bit of a swerve.

The majority of the area isn’t the nicest place around, there are of course a few roads which are ok.

Prices tend to be quite a bit lower than neighbouring towns like leigh/chawkwell/hadleigh/southend etc etc for a reason.

Oh and ive lived in and around southend for the past 40+ years so i know a fair bit about the area.

Reluctantly agree, but if you compare it to other affordable London areas, it's far nicer. Things are also improving in parts of Westcliff and Southend. Smarter bars and restaurants are popping up. Give me either of those over say East Ham or Plaistow, etc any day! If the OP could afford Leigh, Hadleigh, etc, I'm sure they'd be looking there. Guessing the budget is fairly low. Perhaps the OP could confirm.

AndyBSG

GoncaloPerdigao wrote: »

Our main concern is that we are used to the London lifestyle.
We are aware that we will need to get used to Westcliff, but we afraid that is very quiet and there is nothing to do in the evenings/weekends, eating out, ordering food.

It all depends on what sort of lifestyle?

In terms of clubs/bars then you'll find Westcliff and the surrounding area really can't compete with London, especially when it comes to really late night options(i.e. after 23:00).

Apart from that though there is plenty of other types of night life.

The whole area is really spoiled for choice when it comes to restaurants. London Road is pretty much restaurants all along and Southend has all the chain restaurants you could want.

You also have Westcliff Casino and the Kursaal casino, two theatres's which show a variety of decent plays and musical and some good comedy gigs, Leigh Broadway for boutique shopping and TOWIE style bars and plenty of more traditional boozers of varying qualities as well as Old Leigh which has the excellent Boatyard restaurant.

As other's have mentioned, Westcliff isn't as 'trendy' as Leigh On Sea and a bit more run down compared to surrounding areas but in comparison to London it's definitely better than most places in East London unless you're a multi millionaire.

Biggest issue with the whole Southend area is of course traffic. London Road is pretty much the main artery road from Hadleigh all the way to Southend and during rush hour and pretty much all weekend it's painful.

For commuting to London though C2C is a really good line(although it has slipped a bit in the last year). Modern trains, very reliable and quite cheap compared to comparable lines(it beats the Liverpool Street line on pretty much all counts).

One thing I would say though, are you looking in that area because of family and friends or other ties?

If not I would suggest also considering Chelmsford because that has much more of a London vibe about it and less of the rundown/heavily cramped feel of somewhere like Westcliff.

I've lived most places in that region of Essex from Benfleet, Southend, Basildon and Chelmsford and Chelmsford wins hands down for me.

GoncaloPerdigao

Hi guys,

Thank you for your replies.
We don't have a huge budget, and we want something that have a more space and light. westcliff housee have such big ceilings and large rooms.

My bigger concern was just that we are use to a certain life style and options to do over the weekend and evenings.
From your replies it seems that there is a lot to do there, not only theaters , cinemas and eating but also walkings and enjoying the surrounding nature.

I think it might be a good change.
Cheers

hazyjo

Try some virtual walks on Google maps around the area and surrounding areas. There's a lovely seaside walk/path from Westcliff (and further back) to Old Leigh. Lots of shops at Southend too.

There are some cheap Airbnb places around so try to spend a couple of nights down there.