Relocating To The Uk - Tips Needed

[asia_pilot]

My company is relocationg us to the UK on short notice.I am German and my wife is Thai. Having lived in the USA for almost 7 Years and Thailand the last 3 years I know that living away from you home country can be challenging. As the notice came on short notice, I have done hrs of research on the web last night, but looking for your guys help as well.

Questions comming up on these topics:

• What is the best, affordable area out of london (suburbs) to live with a small child (3Years)? We want to rent a small house (townhouse style) with a small garden etc, not a flat - but dont want to spend everything we earn - Haha
• The area should be clean and safe - and have public transportaion to the city.
• Where in and arround London can you find the biggest asien/thai communities (immigrants)?

Thanks in advance for your help.

[Mercury]

If you are not going to pay for your schooling (from 4 years) then schooling will be the deciding factor in where you live. You may need to be within 500m or less of your chosen school. Many schools are just not good enough and private can cost up to £25,000 a year. Living near your chosen school is just about the only way to safeguard your children's education. Pre 4 year old education can also be expensive though the government provides 15 hours free, but at rates which some places cannot accept as full payment.

You can live near the City but have an awful commute or live farther away and have a better but more expensive commute. A zone 2 pass costs around £140 a month whereas a commute from Surrey or Kent can cost up to £350 a month. Without knowing your salary it is impossible to give a more precise idea of what you can get for your money.

In some parts, a decent small house can be had for £1200/1500 a month. If you go to a nice place with good schools then my guess is that is what it will cost. If you go to a poor area with crap schools then you can obviously get somewhere, though less desirable, for much less. Parents are clued up, they know where the good schools are and consequently prices in those areas are higher.

[bkk_mike]

Where in London will you be working?

i.e. If you're a pilot like your username suggests, wouldn't you be working at Heathrow, at which point, you'd ideally want somewhere in West London (if you want to not drive) - i.e. Somewhere on the Heathrow spur of the Piccadilly Line.

If you're working in the City, then people tend to be on the train lines that come into Liverpool Street, London Bridge, or Moorgate, with trains coming in to Waterloo (and the Waterloo and City Line) as another option.

I know people that commute in daily from places like Cambridge and Bishops Stortford for the sake of their children's schooling.

I know some Thais (friend of my wife, and a friend of my daughter) that live in Chiswick, but I thought Earls Court (same as for Aussie/NZ - cheap and central) and Wimbledon (because of the Thai Temple there) were the main areas. But there are Thai shops in lots of places, and lots of the people shopping in Chinatown on the weekend are Thai.

But the main thing is the school. You need to find a good state school (unless you're earning the amounts that you can put your child in private education), that's within commuting distance of where you'll be working.

[RAZZELL]

I'd second what bkk_mike has said - if you can afford it Wimbledon village is ideal.

Wimbledon common, Thai temple, good transport links...but VERY EXPENSIVE. Barnes, Chiswick, Richmond and Putney are also the right side of town if you're working around Heathrow....but also not exactly cheap.

But would help if we knew where you were working...make's a lot of difference.

RAZZ

Edited September 21, 2010 by RAZZELL

[Richard W]

I wouldn't worry about looking for a Thai community - Thai women amount to at least 0.1% of the population in southern England and seem to be very evenly spread - at least, amongst the white community. Initial contact may be tricky - oriental food shops are one place to meet. The temples draw in people from far too wide an area. Play group organisers have been known to help Thai ladies make contact.

[Mercury]

I wouldn't worry about looking for a Thai community - Thai women amount to at least 0.1% of the population in southern England and seem to be very evenly spread - at least, amongst the white community. Initial contact may be tricky - oriental food shops are one place to meet. The temples draw in people from far too wide an area. Play group organisers have been known to help Thai ladies make contact.

I would agree with this. I'd recommend the best community you can afford, which will have the best schools, rather than some Asian ghetto. There are not enough Thais to make their mark in any particular area.

[asia_pilot]

Thanks for all the replies. I am flying out of different airports from the UK. So I have to comute from any airport. But since this is once in a week, comuniting shouldnt be the main issue.

The main issues are: affordable housing Safe enviroment.

I dont want our son to grow up in a flat in Downtown London. He will go to a state funded school and not a private school. So, I assue finding the right place wihin the outskirts and a good school is the most important.

[Mercury]

Similar situation to us. Once she's here we'll move and as I'm renting at the minute, I don't have to consider selling a place. Thus, I can quite literally, move anywhere within a reasonable commute from work. However, here comes the conundrum.

What seems like a quick commute can in fact be arduous, wearisome and on transport which is prone to overcrowding (almost all) and unreliable. Thus, what can seem an ideal location can prove maddening to commute from.

The answer I think I have found for me was to reverse the argument and look at the school system. Go to Kent and you are staring the 11+ exam in the face with hoards of kids stuck in extra tuition simply to try to pass an exam when they should be being kids. That can be from 7 or 8 onwards and last years. Hardly the best situation I think. Go to another place where your choice of property (only at the time of application) will decide which school your child attends. Rent a place 200m from the best infant school which either has its own junior school or is a feeder for an excellent junior school and you "beat the system". Once enrolled, you can move to a cheaper property in the locality. If times right, you need only to extend yourself for 6 months. Of course, you are better not having to move but if needs must ......

Hit the net, find the best schools and then look at commutes. Then get the admissions information from the council and start researching about the admissions rules and distances from schools etc. All very dull but vitally important.

[roamer]

Suburbs...the geography of London often makes this a confusing term. Often people will instead put a qualifying factor in place, East, West etc My own feeling is that you reach the "suburbs" much easier from the centre by heading North. With a child of 3 you have time to decide on schooling. I can also understand where others are coming from about needing to be close to the school to guarantee inclusion but that is a system that is heavily under attack and is unlikely to survive current government reviews. I also suspect that what you term a suburb will turn out to be quite a bit further from London. Don't feel you can do this by a map, think you have to look around and get a feel for it. Agree with others that a Thai/Asian community is more difficult to pin down and I don't think it can form a significant part of your requirements for that very reason. Good luck.

Edited September 22, 2010 by roamer

[asia_pilot]

So, let's ask the way around. What places and neighborhods are to avoid? Pooor living quality, crime, low income families....

How does an outsider know a 'good' or 'better' school ? Eventhough we still have time on the schooling.

Edited September 23, 2010 by asia_pilot

[bifftastic]

Ok, this is a very difficult thing to decide upon. Schools, as others have said, should be your main focus, there are government league tables here http://www.dcsf.gov....formancetables/

but you should really go and have a look for yourself.

Schools in the UK work on a 'catchment area' which some have alluded to, basically you need to live near the school you want your child to attend. The advice about getting into a good 'feeder school' is good.

However, successive governments delight in tinkering with admissions policies as it's a perceived vote winner so, things may change. They all promise parents 'more choice' whatever that's supposed to mean. What it usually results in is some kind of scramble for the current pre-requisites for entry to the school that has recently scored highly in the latest form of measurement.

In short, it's a bit of a mess!

However, there are some very good state schools with dedicated professional heads and teachers who, despite the forever moving goalposts and parents views of what constitutes a good school, strive for and provide a good education.

The trick is finding them! People who live here already are kind of limited to their locale, in your case you're looking for everything.

London is hard to define in terms of 'good and bad areas' most areas have a mixture of poor and wealthy people and consequently it's difficult to say "oh don't live there whatever you do"

People have their own predjudices based on their experiences.

Try some of these property search sites

http://www.knightfrank.co.uk/lettings/

http://www.findaproperty.com/

http://www.bdihomefinders.co.uk/

What you refer to as 'the suburbs' is also difficult to define, London is very large and is a collection of what used to be separate towns which have all been swallowed up into what is now Greater London. Around the edge of the city are what is referred to as 'The Home Counties' which are Counties that border on London.

This is also referred to as 'The Commuter Belt' for fairly obvious reasons. Housing is expensive throughout the UK and especially so in and around London.

Transport into the city is expensive, overcrowded and unpopular. The population of London is around the 8 million mark but swells to 11 million during the day, so you can imagine a system designed over 100 years ago would struggle to cope with these numbers. If you're fortunate enough not to have to travel in what is euphemistically known as 'rush hour' (in fact it's about 3 hours!) then you'll find the transport links very good.

What you're doing is difficult, I hope I haven't put you off! It's a great city with a lot to offer, it's just hard to jump in and find a good area good school and a good commute right off the bat. What's good for some is bad for others so you'll need to have a look for yourself, if time will allow.

If your company has a base here already then they would be the people I would look to for help in the first instance, but if I can be of any help as well, please don't hesitate to ask.

Cheers,

Biff

Edited September 23, 2010 by bifftastic

[roamer]

I think Biff's post above is an excellent summation of a very confusing situation, educationally, geographically, socially, its confusing.

"London is hard to define in terms of 'good and bad areas' most areas have a mixture of poor and wealthy people and consequently it's difficult to say "oh don't live there whatever you do"

Taking this as an example its so true, I live in a part of London (Belsize Park, Camden for those of you in the know) where if you were to draw a one mile circle with my house at the epicenter you would encounter the following; run down council estates, high street crime, major drug problems, some very poor state schools. You will also encounter some of the most expensive & exclusive housing in London, vibrant nightlife, some truly excellent state schools. Now whilst I accept my area may be quite extreme and not representative and also not a suburb, I also agree with Biff that most areas are a mixture of poor and wealthy, ever increasing house prices have forced the middle classes into areas where they would never have dreamed of living 10 years ago. Its that migration that will almost certainly bring about major changes in school admission policies, people deliberately buying properties next to schools to ensure their kids education reduces the catchment area of a school and that is now widely seen as being unfair. And for internal political reasons this coalition government may have to go a lot further with changes to the existing policy than the traditional "tinkering" I personally would be wary of picking an area to live in on those grounds in these present times.

You really need to take a look, like Biff I agree that London has a lot going for it despite its detractors, but it doesn't come easy, takes work !! Good luck.

[Mercury]

If you use findaproperty.com you can join, put in the post code of your preferred school, research the distance you need to be within and put that in the search function, thus only offering you properties which would qualify for the chosen school. You have to refine that with the online admissions maps but it is a fair start.

As for having time with a child of 3, you have potentially only until January 15th 2011 to be in a property !

[bkk_mike]

Much as people may malign catchment areas, they won't disappear any time soon.

If you think complaints from people near the boundary between two schools catchment areas is bad. Just imagine the likely stink from people living next to a good school being forced by their council to send their children to a bad one that's further away.

Also once councils start sending people to the school that's not the nearest one, you're more likely to run into the distances for mandatory school transport. (A large part of the additional per-child spending on education in Scotland is simply because a higher proportion of children live beyond the 3 mile limit for secondary students to get council-provided free school buses)

[ajarnchompoo]

Hi. You said you are going to be flying out of many different airports, mainly once a week.

My husband and I used to work for BA, and did a commute from Hampshire.

If your child is only 3 years old, and your travelling requirements are on a weekly basis, I would suggest you look slighly further affield.

Rail links, National Express buses and motorways are good within a very large radius of London.

London is NOT like Bangkok. That is an important factor to remember.

And then, as has been suggested Look for your scholing/playgroup. If the area is reasonable, and your home is good to live in you are halfway there, If your unhappy

with the area and home but happy with the school, its not a good solution. As your child is so young, in my opinion, schooling should be 2nd on your list,

find a good place to live and start from there............

I am in the UK until end of October if I can be of any help..........just PM me and I will be happy to do anything I can.:jap:

Good luck

[bkk_mike]

To be honest - if you're flying out of more than one airport, and only doing the commute once a week, you're probably better off in one of the commuter towns around the M25 or neighbouring motorways and avoid the London suburbs altogether.

i.e. Woking, Slough, St Albans, High Wycombe, etc. Look at a map of the M25 and look for a school in one of those.

The commute (if only once a week) can be done by minicab if necessary. If it's to one of the airports that aren't near where you end up living (cheaper than airport parking if it's not covered by your company). I know people that used to commute into the City from Oxford every day. The average commute in London is something like 40 minutes and that's with people picking where they live with only one place they need to go for work...

There's not really anywhere outside of the centre that's a good commute to all the airports around London as Heathrow (West) trains are from Paddington, Stansted (North East) from Liverpool Street, and Gatwick (South) from Victoria/Waterloo/Thameslink, so as soon as you head out of London, in one direction, to get to the airports you have to go into central London, take the underground to the station you need, then take another train out to the airport.

(If you prefer to do the commute by train, somewhere on the Thameslink rail line may make a lot of sense... - ie Thameslink straight to Gatwick and Luton airports, or into Farringdon for transfer to the underground for Liverpool Street / Paddington, but where you can take a minicab to Heathrow/Stansted around the M25 if you don't have time for the train in and back out again.)

If you knew which airport you would fly out of more than the others, that would definitely help in narrowing down your choices. i.e. If it's predominantly Stansted, Bishops Stortford is one stop out on the train, and has good schools, but would be a pretty hefty commute to Heathrow/Gatwick. If it's Gatwick, Haywards Heath or Horley, etc.

[RAZZELL]

Yep, commuter town like Guildford could be good too (has a very small Thai supermarket).

RAZZ

Edited September 30, 2010 by RAZZELL

[roamer]

Much as people may malign catchment areas, they won't disappear any time soon.

If you think complaints from people near the boundary between two schools catchment areas is bad. Just imagine the likely stink from people living next to a good school being forced by their council to send their children to a bad one that's further away.

Also once councils start sending people to the school that's not the nearest one, you're more likely to run into the distances for mandatory school transport. (A large part of the additional per-child spending on education in Scotland is simply because a higher proportion of children live beyond the 3 mile limit for secondary students to get council-provided free school buses)

FYI, catchment ares are already disappearing. I'm not sure how much of this is relevant to the OP but I hope its permissible to wander a little off topic when your discussing something that potentially affects a lot of people who may well be considering moving/relocating to London or the UK. This is the admission policy of a much sought after school in my area, it effectively destroys catchment areas.

Admissions At Age 11 For 2011

The school admits 112 girls representing the full range of ability. In order to be considered for a place at Camden School for Girls applicants must attend an assessment session at the school which will place them in one of four ability bands. These non-competitive assessments are processed independently of the school. 28 places are then offered in each band.

In the unlikely event that there are fewer than 28 applicants in any band, the unused places will be offered to applicants in the adjacent bands, taken equally from the bands above and below where this is possible. Priority is given to applicants who sit the banding assessment session.

Places will first be offered to applicants with a statement of special educational needs naming the school, issued by or with the support of Camden LA. Places will then be offered in each band in accordance with the criteria 1, 2, 3 and 4 (in the order in which they appear) or as a music place.

1. Looked after children

2. Siblings

Applicants having a sister or brother living at the same address on the roll of the school at the time of admission.

3. Exceptional medical or social need

Applicants considered by the Governors to have an exceptional medical or social need that Camden School for Girls is specifically able to meet. Applications will only be considered on this basis if the case is made known to the school and supported by appropriate evidence at the time of the original application. As the school is a secular foundation, the religion of the applicant will not be considered a special need.

4. Distance

Applicants whose permanent home is nearest to the school, measured in a straight line (as the crow flies). For applicants for September 2011, the school will only consider applications under this criterion from those living within 1.04 miles of the school entrance. If more than 216 applications are received under this criterion, the school will only consider the 216 applicants living closest to the school.

Note:

(a) Because the school has been heavily oversubscribed for many years, the distance and numerical restrictions are necessary to avoid the burden and disappointment of applications and assessment sessions for those who have no chance of being offered a place.

( The distance and numerical restrictions are reviewed annually. The distance restriction is set at twice the greatest distance at which any applicant has been admitted on the distance criterion over the previous three years. The numerical restriction is set at three times the greatest number who have been admitted on the distance criterion over the previous three years.

© There may be many more applicants living within the specified distance than there are places in the school. The fact that an applicant lives within the specified distance does not in any way guarantee the offer of a place.

(d) The school will carefully verify the permanent home addresses of applicants."

In my area the above policy is not unusual and by no means restricted to the above school. This is also an agenda driven by school heads who feel unhappy at the prospect of parents who have the means to effectively buy a place at the school of their choice by purchasing a property within the catchment area. My niece (privately educated) is a school teacher and is quick to point out that she, like many of her colleagues, chose to work in the state sector because of the challenges and does not want to work in a school that becomes private by default.

"If you think complaints from people near the boundary between two schools catchment areas is bad. Just imagine the likely stink from people living next to a good school being forced by their council to send their children to a bad one that's further away."

Well nowhere near as bad a stink as the latest attempt by one school to define its catchment area....no longer horizontal, its now also vertical. If you live on the ground floor of a block at the edge of a catchment area (areas are now measured by GPS data) you have precedence over someone on an upper floor. That was probably the final nail in the catchment system and has led to many calls for change.

Of course the more cynical amongst us might also agree with a comment I heard expressed the other day in a debate; that many people who were formerly in favour of catchment areas have now radically changed their views, this is of course completely unaffected by the fact that due to the economic/property/mortgage market they are no longer able to pursue their plan to move into the catchment area.

For some of you, if not the OP, this is obviously an important factor, but despite what some would like to believe, school admission policies are not carved in stone, change is inevitable. I'm not saying they will be any better, simply saying that present coalition government realities will result in enforced changes to a system that is already changing due to socioeconomic pressures.

[Theoutsider]

barnet is good.

[sarahsbloke]

Wy choose central London.

Near Gatwick you have Dorking (very villagy), Reading and a million other places to live.

Central London is nasty IMHO.

[Theoutsider]

Dorking sounds better than Reading, Reading was like little london last time i was there. WOMAD was good though.

Good luck finding a good state school.

[bangkockney]

Make use of the Foxtons website as they have expanded to the Home Counties and also provide very detailed info about different areas, including transport, schools, local amenities etc.

You don't have to use Foxtons to find a rental property (they're expensive) but it makes sense to make use of their website - seems it would give you a good head start.

http://www.foxtons.co.uk/

Earls Court is full of Thai restaurants, bars, karaoke etc if that's what floats your boat. There is also a club called Thai Square at Trafalgar Square which is popular. It's also a restaurant. But, it can get full of English men (girls enter free). It can be quite funny if you go with a Thai because at the end of the night they'll stop the music, turn on the lights and pretend to close, kicking out everyone who isn't Thai. You then have a nightclub lock-in!

Personally, I can't stand any of these places, so avoid them like the plague.

EDIT: Does your company not provide any relocation assistance? They leave it completely up to you to do everything? Big agents like Foxtons provide corporate relocation services - maybe you can pitch your boss?

Edited October 12, 2010 by bangkockney