New job. Where to live near Coventry?

[RLve]

Mods, Apologies for the cross posting, please delete post in Home, Garden etc if this is the more appropriate forum.


New job dictates a relocation to work near Coventry in 3 months and we are trying to work out where to live.

Solihull, Sutton Coldfield and nearby Warks villages (Lapworth, Hockley Heath etc) seem obvious choices but we'd welcome some insider knowledge.

We are looking for rural living or leafy urban with big garden with good primary school, so where's good?

Any local knowledge / advice would be greatly appreciated!

[mikees]

Kenilworth , stoneleigh, stratford, Coventry university area. Honely. Outskirts of solihull

[RLve]

Moving for rural S Cambs and looking for similar but with more interest. Some lovely countryside in Warwickshire

[jas xjr]

my sister lives in balsall common which seems quite nice .

[mikees]

jas xjr said:

my sister lives in balsall common which seems quite nice .

Agree. Some great restaurants near by as well. Eg The Orange Tree


Dorridge and Knowle are ok as well.

On balance I still like kenilworth or a small town.

Edited by mikees on Wednesday 17th April 23:03

[Shirt587]

Balsall Common good and has a train station (Berkswell) which is on the Coventry line if you are working near city centre.

Dorridge and Knowle also good, there's a reasonable road connecting them to the A46 for the south side of Coventry.

To a degree, it depends where you're going to be working as you don't want to have to go the whole way around Coventry every day!

One thing that hasn't been mentioned yet - find the HS2 plans and shop accordingly. There's a lovely lovely place called Gilson where we nearly bought until we realised that HS2 is currently planned to run clean through the middle of it so the whole place will probably be CPOd in about six years time.

[Engineer1]

I'd stay avoid going for anywhere that means a drive through or round Central Brum, stick to places like Lemington Spa, Rugby, etc rather than Sutton Coldfield as driving through or round Brum in rush hour can be a PITA.

[GadgeS3C]

Engineer1 said:

I'd stay avoid going for anywhere that means a drive through or round Central Brum, stick to places like Lemington Spa, Rugby, etc rather than Sutton Coldfield as driving through or round Brum in rush hour can be a PITA.

I'll second that.

OH used to live in Smethwick and getting across Brum to get to Notts was a nightmare.

[Engineer1]

The only rider to that is if the hours are right you may be through before most other employees hit the roads, I am doing Brownhills to Kings Norton daily and thanks to my start and end times I am through town before rush hour kicks in.

[RLve]

Thanks all, much appreciated.

We were up there at the weekend and stayed the night in Solihull. Solihull is not for us, we preferred Sutton Coldfield but it's too far to commute daily to south of Coventry.

Clavendon (excellent primary school), Lowsonford and surrounds, Lapworth and Hockley Heath are favourite. Honiley looks like a great rural place to live too. Kenilworth wasn't on our list initially, we thought it was a bit too urban for us, but after spending Sunday afternoon there we may reconsider.

Good point about HS2. It's having quite an effect on prices. We've found if it's too good to be true then it's probably HS2!

Asking prices seem unrealistically high compared to S Cambridgeshire? We expected, perhaps naively, that we would get more for our money in Warks.

[mondeoman]

RLve said:

Thanks all, much appreciated.

Asking prices seem unrealistically high compared to S Cambridgeshire? We expected, perhaps naively, that we would get more for our money in Warks.

Sorry.

[spoofking]

Another vote for Balsall Common - in laws live there and if I had to move from Bristol, I'd be looking to move there. Tamarinds curry house is more than enough reason to move there!!!!

[RLve]

mondeoman said:

RLve said:

Thanks all, much appreciated.

Asking prices seem unrealistically high compared to S Cambridgeshire? We expected, perhaps naively, that we would get more for our money in Warks.

Sorry.

At the risk of turning this into a house prices thread...

291,165 average asking price in South Cambs
284,922 in Stratford, much less if you head north

Of course averages are just that, and we are intending to move 'up market'. Cambs properties are selling within 93% of asking, more for good properties. Based on what we've seen so far we're wondering whether the same can be said in Warks. We'll find out soon enough I guess.

[Engineer1]

But you are still looking to move to a nice leafy middle England market town type of place the prices will still be strong. Personally if I was relocating a good distance I'd rent first as the areas we all recomend may be too quite,too lively have no pub or any other issue that only appears when you finally live there a while.