Daydream fund challenge part 4

alfie_1 wrote: »

its actually cheaper where she has lived... Southsea. than inland. the housing is so dense its like a rabbit warren. my nephew used to own a sea front hotel/wine bar there and he was constantly asked to house "homeless" and the council offered full £'s which defeats the object really... why the council sold off/never built new I don't know ....well I do but that's another monologue !;)


friend is in a catch 22 situation and council have said they don't even have emergency housing. unfortunately that area has been taken over by "rooms to rent" at max profit rather than let the house itself it seems.
there is a high drug rate in that region and roads/houses that go with that stigma.. she doesn't want to be in those areas which is fair enough..
we are not beaten yet !!

Gosh, really? Whereabouts does she live Alfie?

Obviously there are good and bad roads everywhere, but there was nothing like that in the leafy Southsea conservation area where we lived for ten years :eek: In fact we lived in the environs of Southsea from the early 1990s after I graduated and set up my business there, and we never encountered any drug issues.

Our first flat was on the seafront though and I do know that some of the roads lying immediately behind there had a bit of a reputation for *working ladies* in the past (before our time there, lol :rotfl:), but the only problem we had was when some revellers nicked a planter from our front garden and DH chased them up the road till they relinquished it

When we lived in Southsea there were lots of student houses around - our neighbour at our last-but-one house there was a student whose parents had bought a house for him and several friends to share, but I guess since we left the area more purpose-built halls of residence have gone up and the student population has migrated further north to Fratton and suchlike.

That said, our former neighbour at our last house there was rumoured to be a drug baron, but he was otherwise a well-respected businessman with three kids at the same highly-regarded independent school as DS

alfie_1 wrote: »

:rotfl::rotfl: sorry phoebe but there ARE some dire areas around Southsea/Portsmouth. being police connected, I promise you there is a notorious drug/drink problem too. I never said ALL. as for student halls being built ? a vast majority of the large 6/7 bed houses are let by the room now.
yes there are some nice areas but not everyone gets to be in the better "catchment" areas.


p,s, so its ok for neighbour to be a drug baron ? cos it paid for a good school for kids ?


sorry to sound pithed off but not everyone needs a "good" school to get on in life... its the morals count

Obviously your friend is unfortunate to live in a less than desirable road/area - sorry, where did you say it was?

During our time there - I was born in a naval nursing home overlooking the seafront and lived in Southsea all my life (apart from my time at uni) till the age of forty - we had many friends with large houses, most notably in the Craneswater Park and Kent Road/Queens Crescent areas and *for the most part* these locations were inhabited by families......but our family home was four flats when we purchased it and I don't deny that many of the larger houses had been subdivided. In our road of around twenty properties, in the ten years of our residence I think six were in multiple occupancy whilst four others were businesses (a nursery school that took up two houses, a residential home and a language school, although the latter has since reverted back to a family home) and these were houses of a minimum of six beds/3000 sq ft.

In the surrounding roads I can think of a few that had small pockets of houses converted to flats, but only a very few and these tended to be student accommodation.

I was under the impression - although after my parents went into their nursing home in 2012 we rarely went onto Portsea Island itself - that many student halls had been built in the city centre and Fratton areas.....but maybe I'm wrong?

I didn't say it was alright to be a drug baron - tbh, I don't know for certain that he was/is one - but many people (shopkeepers & builders who had known him for very many years) said he was and there was a massive police raid on his house one day that was never explained. What I meant was that this was not *petty* drug abuse, but potentially something more sinister and that if true, it funded a very expensive lifestyle.

Where you got the idea from that I said it was ok to be a drug baron if it facilitated your kids going to a good school, goodness only knows?

I get the strong impression that I'm not liked by you - although I'm not sure why - so perhaps I should have stayed off the forum when I discovered we were being stalked :eek: