Best places to live in Kent

aaryal

Hi All,

I'm sure this has been discussed in the past. Could you please tell me your views on which places in Kent are considered affluent and which places are considered "rough"?

For example, Tunbridge Wells and Sevenoaks are obviously the most expensive big towns and are affluent areas.
What about the following:

• Paddock Wood
• Edenbridge
• Ashford
• West/East Malling (Kings Hill)
• Bearsted
• Ashford
• Gravesend
• Rochester
• Gillingham
• Chatham
• Faversham
• Tenterden

In particular, I'm intereste in Edenbridge. Is that considered an affluent area?

Many thanks.

katkatmachine

We moved from London to Edenbridge last year. Best decision ever! We love it here. A small sleepy town yet still very close to London where we work. Super quiet, as in dead quiet but in a good way of course. Very much different from our old place in London where there’s always noise from ambulance and cars passing by. Also, the people here are nice, good sense of community. We even have a facebook group where you can ask if you need advice,recommendations etc about the town. It’s not something that we had in London so I really appreciate it. Only downside, there’s not much to see in the town, not a lot of restaurants and pubs, for food shopping there’s only Lidl, Home Bargains, and Waitrose, that’s it. Houses are also a bit expensive since as mentioned, it’s near London. Overall, I recommend Edenbridge, lovely town, lovely people. And oh I love our development too, I think the developer did a good job in the planning and design.

aaryal

katkatmachine said:

We moved from London to Edenbridge last year. Best decision ever! We love it here. A small sleepy town yet still very close to London where we work. Super quiet, as in dead quiet but in a good way of course. Very much different from our old place in London where there’s always noise from ambulance and cars passing by. Also, the people here are nice, good sense of community. We even have a facebook group where you can ask if you need advice,recommendations etc about the town. It’s not something that we had in London so I really appreciate it. Only downside, there’s not much to see in the town, not a lot of restaurants and pubs, for food shopping there’s only Lidl, Home Bargains, and Waitrose, that’s it. Houses are also a bit expensive since as mentioned, it’s near London. Overall, I recommend Edenbridge, lovely town, lovely people. And oh I love our development too, I think the developer did a good job in the planning and design.

Thanks katkatmachine. This is exactly the advice I needed. Which developer did you go with if I may ask? We are also considering a new build property.

A couple more questions if that's okay

1) I also don't mind dead quiet. But do you ever feel like you're missing out on the hustle and bustle of London? I've been in London all my life so I'm not 100% sure if a place too quiet is going to make me miss London

2) do you take the train to central London? If so what's the experience like? I need to take the train to work. I'm aware there's two train stations.

3) a bit of a shallow question (apologies). Is edenbridge seen as an affluent area? Just asking because I'm thinking about resale potential, let's say in about 8 years after living there if I buy a house there. I'm hoping it is an area that will be snapped up fast

4) is there any "youth crime" in the area. Kind of people littering and noisy youths vandalising stuff? I've saved enough of that in London. The littering really gets to me

Thanks so much

katkatmachine

Hi. We are with Bellway, it’s a big development of 300 houses. You can actually check their website, I think they are in the last stage building the remaining 100 houses.

1. I don’t miss the busy life in the city at all. If ever I do, London is just a train ride away from where I live. But I do miss McDonalds though, lol. From where we used to live in London, it’s just literally 3 minutes walk. But here the closest one is half an hour drive. 
2. Yes, there are two train stations, one is 5 minute walk from our development and the other is 20 minutes. I take the 20 minute walk, then it’s a 45 minute train ride to London Bridge and then another 20 minute walk from the station to our office near Liverpool Street Station. Yes, it’s quite a walk but you get used to it, I actually enjoy it, gives me a good exercise. What I don’t like is the fare though. When we were still in London (boundary of zone 3-4), the monthly travel card is only £180, now I am paying £313 and that is just for the southeastern train to get to London, it will be another expense if you take the Underground or the red busses. That’s why I just walk from London Bridge to our office.
3. Is it an affluent town? Yes I would think so. We are also planning to sell up in 13-15 years time. We hope by that time, there are more developments here like restaurants and fast foods, I heard a big Tesco is going to be built here, so that might help increase the property value. Also the fact that it’s very near London, makes it a sought-after town. You get the best of both worlds: a VERY quiet place to live in and if you still want to go to party in Soho, it’s just a train ride away. So you are not actually missing out on anything. But you have to be careful though, last train to Edenbridge is at 11:07pm if you miss that, you will need to take a train to Redhill/Tonbdrige and get an Uber from there to be able to get home. Hahahaha.
4. Yes, not gonna lie, there are some petty crimes here. Actually, I’ve just read in our group yesterday that’s there’s an expensive bike that was stolen, owner is actually offering £300 reward, so yeah. But this things, it can happen anywhere. So far, we’ve been living here for a year now, we haven’t experience this yet, I honestly feel safe here in the development where we are at. 

Good luck.

RS2OOO

Get back onto Google Maps - You are missing a few really nice areas with great commuting links, but you'll need to find some of them yourself based on your needs.

We've studied most of those areas in detail ahead of our impending move, and visited a number of them. None of these places are where we ended up buying, but I'm not going to share that location just yet, don't want any more competition on the one and only house for sale that we are trying to buy!

Gillingham had nice houses and nice streets but overall we didn't like the area.

Rainham, not on your list, but we liked it but decided against because we found it horrible to drive to and from for our commutes towards London. Would be ok if you don't need to drive much and are using the high speed rail.

Upchurch - Some very nice parts and we could really see ourselves living there happily. Tried to view this house multiple times but estate agent never called back. We walked around the area and loved it. Don't be put off by the fact its a townhouse - The street was stunning and it was obvious there was a great community spirit. But, as with Rainham, the commute from a driving perspective was not very nice (thin bumpy roads, annoying traffic calming measures etc):
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/111912290#/?channel=RES_BUY

Sittingbourne - Looked at this area too, better than Gillingham/Chatham etc, but not perfect. Some nice big houses reasonably priced and good for commuting by train. A little far for driving.

Borough Green - Really liked this area and good for driving to/from, not so great for the commute by train.

Maidstone - Within reach of West Maidstone station for a decent commute.

Tonbridge & Malling - Very good all round if you can find the right house and be within walking distance of a suitable station for commuting.

Chatham - Didn't like.

Walderslade - Had some great parts and some less great parts. We offered on a house here but didn't get it. Good driving links but have to get to Chatham for a decent train commute time.

Rochester - High Street was stunning, really worth a visit on a sunny day. Overall loved the area and would happily live there, but we couldn't find a suitable house within budget.

Ashford - Nice big well priced houses, a little soul-less, good for high speed rail albeit pricey, but it is a long drive if commuting to London by car/van from there.

Faversham - Visited and it was ok, but decided it was just too far for us. Would be ok if you only need to travel to London on the High Speed. We didn't get far enough to establish which parts were the better parts.

Gravesend - There are some really nice pockets, more so to the south.

Istead Rise - Lovely in all respects.

New Barn - Lovely in all respects, prices gone up a lot and now out of our budget.

Edenbridge/Paddock Wood - We know these areas and they are very nice with a great village feel, but wouldn't work for us due to commuting time by train. Otherwise recommended.

Places like Nettlestead and Longfield are also really nice.

There are a number of other villages worth looking at, Higham, Shorne, Thong, Southfleet - we'd have been happy in any of those areas but couldn't find a suitable house.

Dark_Star

Avoid Gillingham & Chatham like the plague. 

Also St Mary’s Island which is a development near Chatham. 

Below are some facts that estate agents tend to ignore…😛

St Mary's Island

St Mary's Island was originally a marshy area to the north of Chatham Dockyard. It had many uses over the years: brickfields, prison, a place to bury the bodies of the prisoners of war held captive on the prison hulks in the River Medway, a place to change the reactor cores of the Royal Navy's submarines, a nuclear waste dump and now, after removing 1,300,000 tonnes of contaminated soil, a housing estate.

In the early years of the twentieth century there were plans to expand the dockyard to include St Mary's Island. The bodies of the prisoners were exhumed, and re-interred in the grounds of St George's Church, now the St George's Centre.

The dockyard extension involved using convict labour to turn St Mary's Creek into three huge ship-building basins. The western basin, number one, was the repairing basin. This was where new ships were launched (there are five docks around the basin), and where other ships were stripped for repair. This is now the marina.

greensalad

Tunbridge Wells & Sevenoaks, imo, aren't all they cracked up to be. I'm from Tonbridge (since moved away) with family links in both (and grew up amongst all those towns) and personally I think Sevenoaks has a naff high street and lots of not so nice areas. Tunbridge Wells is only nice at the Pantiles and has a particularly bad dying town centre. I actually rate Tonbridge so much more than I used to, particularly if you choose somewhere around The Slade or up to Bordyke which I think is just such a lovely area (I say this as someone who couldn't wait to leave but now finds the town very charming when I go back!)

I'm currently in the process of moving to just outside Canterbury, after several years away in Surrey.

We looked at Paddock Wood too. It's what I would classify as boring but nice. It doesn't have a huge buzz around it but it's got a pleasant little high street, good rail links and the houses there are significantly more affordable that Tonbridge. It was 1st on our list until we ended up becoming remote workers and realised we could move to Canterbury which is a dream of ours.

And yes, as someone who grew up in the local area I would consider Edenbridge to be a "posh" place.

NameUnavailable

Dark_Star said:

Avoid Gillingham & Chatham like the plague. 

Have you personal experience of living in those areas?

If I want to buy a house they are a couple of the areas I can afford. I know they are the poor relations to Rochester and some areas look a bit 'scruffy' but are they really that bad?

RS2OOO

NameUnavailable said:

Dark_Star said:

Avoid Gillingham & Chatham like the plague. 

Have you personal experience of living in those areas?

If I want to buy a house they are a couple of the areas I can afford. I know they are the poor relations to Rochester and some areas look a bit 'scruffy' but are they really that bad?

I would say some scruffy streets in those towns aren't that bad at all and you may never get any problems that bother you, and the problems that you do get could probably happen anywhere...... Things I've experienced in an area very similar to both those locations....Full blown domestics in the street when trying to sleep, people constantly having garden bonfires in the middle of a sunny day, shed and garden (furniture) thefts. All relatively small annoyances in the scheme of things, but they start to grind you down after a while. That aside I've very rarely felt unsafe walking around at night.

Dark_Star

I have lived in Gillingham & worked in Chatham. Wild horses would not drag me back….

ejury

I lived in Tonbridge and loved it. High street was lovely and there were lots of shops. Some nice places to go for food and drinks. 

Tenterden is beautiful and quite affluent, we were looking to move here as its only 20 minute drive from Rye which is where we're both from.

Just moved from Ashford and I didn't like it. Parts of it are nice but there are some quite rough areas too. Since they made the outlet bigger the town has suffered a bit. 

We are currently waiting to exchange on a house in Staplehurst.