Banbury...nice area/ dodgy area?

[Luca Brazzi]

Considering the Banbury area for a place to move to.

What are your general thoughts on Banbury?
Are there nice parts and less nice parts? Would you avoid it altogether? What do I need to know about Banbury?
Anybody live there and do the occasional commute to London?

Cheers.

[Ozone]

Avoid the Bretch Hill area, followed by the Grimsbury area.
Depending on your budget, Bodicote Is OK but the opposite end of town to the motorway junction.

M40 builds up at the A34 junction and at High Wycome.

Will try and add more later.

[Pintofbest]

Hi,

I was Banbury for 10 years and now live just outside.

Commute - easy, roughly an hour, I normally catch the 6:30 and always get a seat (back in the days of travel anyway)

For areas, pretty much every road in and out of Banbury has a new estate now so depends if you want new or older property. Above good areas to avoid, others:

Hanwell Fields (between Warwick Rd and Southam Rd) - very run down now so I'd avoid
New houses on Southam Rd - very near motorway, not the best
Few new estates on Warwick Rd - avoid Persimmon due to quality, other estates are better in that road but they'll be building for years
On Bloxham Rd - Redrow quite nice but another huge estate, Morris Homes similar
Longford Park is another pretty poor sprawling new build estate

Broughton Rd has some nice houses, as does Bloxham Rd.

What kind of house are you looking for?

Town centre has been pretty run down but huge development underway around the canals, should make a real difference. Oxford is 15mins on therein though (£3.50 return on Fridays on the train) so easy to get to other places too.

Edited by Pintofbest on Tuesday 23 February 09:29

[Rutter]

Do you like the smell of coffee?

[timbobalob]

Rutter said:

Do you like the smell of coffee?

I live in Bloxham (about 6 miles from the centre of town) and never smell the coffee here! But in town you can certainly smell it.

As above, Bodicote is fine, surrounding villages (including Bloxham) are quite nice.

[Rutter]

timbobalob said:

Rutter said:

Do you like the smell of coffee?

I live in Bloxham (about 6 miles from the centre of town) and never smell the coffee here! But in town you can certainly smell it.

As above, Bodicote is fine, surrounding villages (including Bloxham) are quite nice.

To be fair my only real exposure is visiting a customer on the beaumont road estate but on some days its pretty nasty!

[normalbloke]

Rutter said:

Do you like the smell of coffee?

Is it coffee? I always thought it was the various chocolate ingredients from the Barry Callebaut factory?

[timbobalob]

Rutter said:

To be fair my only real exposure is visiting a customer on the beaumont road estate but on some days its pretty nasty!

Definitely - it can really stink! Especially on a warm day and mixed with the bakery opposite

[Rutter]

normalbloke said:

Is it coffee? I always thought it was the various chocolate ingredients from the Barry Callebaut factory?

Probably a combination of that and the jacobs douwe egberts billowing out all the steam, I drink more than my fair share of coffee but i'm glad it doesn't smell as bad as Banbury!

[vixen1700]

Really selling the place to the OP.

[super7]

It's coffee from the whoever owns the plant now..... used to be general foods but has been bought and sold by almost every food company.

Bloxham will be part of Banbury soon. Banbury as a whole is a st hole. Breech hill is one of the bad areas, ex-home of one Gordon Ramsay. Plenty of lovely villages on the outskirts though, both on the Northants side and the Oxford side.

Obviously in the slap bang in the centre of Motorsport world..... Prodrive, Haas, FE teams etc etc

[timbobalob]

vixen1700 said:

Really selling the place to the OP.

Especially if he likes coffee!

The way Banbury is expanding (like most towns) it'll encompass Bloxham sooner or later, but in the relative short term I'd say it's unlikely to make too much of a difference.

There is a massive redevelopment in the centre for shopping/cinema etc if that's your bag and if not it's easy to get lost in the many fields around Adderbury/Bloxham/Milton/Milcombe.

I moved from a South Northamptonshire village 5 years ago and whilst the property prices are noticeably higher once you cross the county border, in my mind it's a nicer part of the country.

There are also some cracking driving roads as you head into the Cotswolds and Caffeine and Machine is not far away either!

[Luca Brazzi]

timbobalob said:

Especially if he likes coffee!

The way Banbury is expanding (like most towns) it'll encompass Bloxham sooner or later, but in the relative short term I'd say it's unlikely to make too much of a difference.

There is a massive redevelopment in the centre for shopping/cinema etc if that's your bag and if not it's easy to get lost in the many fields around Adderbury/Bloxham/Milton/Milcombe.

I moved from a South Northamptonshire village 5 years ago and whilst the property prices are noticeably higher once you cross the county border, in my mind it's a nicer part of the country.

There are also some cracking driving roads as you head into the Cotswolds and Caffeine and Machine is not far away either!

Hi, did you get my PM?

[Ahonen]

The nearby villages are quite lovely and the gently rolling countryside is very pleasant but Banbury itself is pretty awful. Some friends lived there around 15 years ago and I remember many, er, lively nights out in the town centre - 'leave it, Terry, he's not worth it' etc.

Another friend moved to Banbury from Mexico City, which was her first time living in the UK. Her description of finding Banbury a bit rough and scary at night tickled me hugely. I've been to Mexico City several times and I definitely didn't find it to be a nice, relaxing environment...

[ZymoTech]

super7 said:

It's coffee from the whoever owns the plant now..... used to be general foods but has been bought and sold by almost every food company.

Bloxham will be part of Banbury soon. Banbury as a whole is a st hole. Breech hill is one of the bad areas, ex-home of one Gordon Ramsay. Plenty of lovely villages on the outskirts though, both on the Northants side and the Oxford side.

Obviously in the slap bang in the centre of Motorsport world..... Prodrive, Haas, FE teams etc etc

Back in the mid-80s we had a college trip to the General Foods site, as it was then known. We were taken around the place absolutely everywhere - the production lines for Bird's custard, Angel Delight etc, But the one bit we never saw was the coffee production line (Maxwell House is/was the brand I think). Our hosts explained that the process was all top secret, hush-hush and they were concerned about commercial confidentiality. We did get treated to a slap up lunch and everyone left with a goody bag.

[littleredrooster]

We live in a small village 15 miles to the North of Banbury and for many years, it used to be our 'go to' town for a wander about and a coffee etc. We've noticed, however, that in the past 5-10 years, it has become very run-down and lost all of its charm. Scabby youths sitting around in shop doorways, a vague whiff of 'funny smoke' floating around and a general air of neglect (to be polite). It is still much better than Daventry or Rugby, though.

Most of the surrounding villages are quite nice - those on the Northern side would give easier access to the station and M40 but beware - it can take up to 40 minutes at busy periods to get from one side of town to the other!

[DB4DM]

Because of the hills to the south west, Edgehill and Cotswolds, Banbury always seems to have very localised wet weather. Where elsewhere it's drizzle, around Banbury it's full on rain.

If you think Banbury has a faint air of neglect, Stratford is following. In the space of 150m or so of its prime shopping area, there are empty stores including Debenhams, Laura Ashley, Edinburgh Woollen Mill, L'Occitane, BHS, Jaeger, Clintons, Crabtree & Evelyn, Paxton & Whitfield, plus a few others I don't know the names of. And a former private department store is being converted into a centre for the homeless

[anonymous-user]

I live close to Banbury, in a surrounding village.

Banbury is a convenient town to be able to drive into - but I wouldn't live in Banbury itself.

It has all the amenities you'd want of a town - the normal range of 'standard' shops (Wilco's, high street jewellers, Wh Smiths, GAP etc etc etc) as well as a good selection of DIY places (B&Q, Homebase, Dunelm, Toolstation and Screwfix), as well as the big supermarkets (Tesco, Sainsburys, Aldi, M&S, Waitrose) and a few retailers the likes of Currys/PCworld, Pets at Home etc.

The town center itself isn't particularly inspiring but has a share of coffee shops and curio-type retailers. Restaurants are average, and we don't often have a night out so I can't comment. There is massive commercial development on the riverside, which will give various other restaurants and a new cinema.

It's also easy to get in and out of - quick access, traffic isn't bad apart from rush hour. As for the Douwe Egberts factory and 'the smell,' I could see it being a problem if you lived downwind of the prevailing wind, but even when I do venture into Banbury it's rarely noticeable except from the close proximity (the wind blows it away from the town - and it's just a type of coffee smell.

So it's a massively conveniently place to have available. If you want something then Banbury or the surrounding retail areas will have it. But I wouldn't live there. Much like any town in the UK it's suffering from lack of funds and the general appearance shows. I completely disagree about people hanging around in doorways etc - that just isn't my experience, but the average Banbury occupant is hardly your powerfully built director type. If you want that, go and pay double for a smaller house somewhere else.

In summary, there are lots of nice villages and places nearby which keep you close enough to Banbury to use it as required, but I wouldn't want to live in Banbury itself. In rush hour it can be st to get from one side to the other so keep that in mind.

[PH User]

littleredrooster said:

It is still much better than Daventry or Rugby, though.

Daventry and Rugby aren't great, but they are preferable to Banbury which is an awful place.

[PurpleTurtle]

Ahonen said:

The nearby villages are quite lovely and the gently rolling countryside is very pleasant but Banbury itself is pretty awful. Some friends lived there around 15 years ago and I remember many, er, lively nights out in the town centre - 'leave it, Terry, he's not worth it' etc. .

I had a mate at Uni in the 90's who hailed from Middleton Cheney, just east of the M40 from Banbury, his description was very much the same back then, and was indeed like that when we went out the the pubs a few times. He was a massive Goth though, so probably a target for punchy townies!

Where his folks lived in Middleton Cheney was very nice; minutes from the M40, and (back then) an easy drive to Banbury Station.

It's technically Northamptonshire, but I would describe it as a village on the outskirts of Banbury.

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