Reply With QuoteSpent most of the summer of 2008 or 2009 (cant quite remember which) staying in Ryde while working for Britten Norman in Bembridge. Lovely place, laid back.Originally Posted by dejjl
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Craster or failing that, anywhere on the Northumberland coast
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Spent most of the summer of 2008 or 2009 (cant quite remember which) staying in Ryde while working for Britten Norman in Bembridge. Lovely place, laid back.
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The video was filmed in Southend. It's a bit of a historical document nowadays!
We live a few miles away from Torbay (South Hams) and my brother is near to Llandudno (Glan Conwy), both locations chosen with an eye to retirement.
R
Ignorance breeds Fear. Fear breeds Hatred. Hatred breeds Ignorance. Break the chain.
Pick somewhere that is 'viable' ( as much as that can be predicted).
Make sure there are good local amenities (including Doctors/dentists).
Don't purchase near cliffs.
If you are looking for a sea view - get a sea view where there is more to look at than sea.
We have a place in North Devon that we have been going to for over 35 years now. I would gladly live there. During that time (thanks mainly to the North Devon link road) it has progressed from a very sleepy place to quite a sophisticated one. Sure, it is busy at times, but there are ways round most of the crowded bits.
D
Yes I like Torquay. Every time I’ve been recently we have dined at The Elephant - so good. Booked in for new year actually but we’ll see if that happens.
Either Devon or Cornwall. However Cornwall just feels a bit too far/isolated from civilisations. All the hedges are too high, it just annoys me.
They are just starting on finally making the link road dual carriage way so it will be even easier in the future.
I have spent summers there for more years than I care to remember, family had a caravan for years then a bungalow in the town.
The only downside is Easter. The place is rammed with scrotes for the entire long weekend, although to be fair Portrush is X10 worse.
Oh and amazing golf courses. Both tracks at Portrush and the Portstewart links are wonderful. Portstewart old town course is good to shake a Sunday morning hangover
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I still remember the B road over the top via Rackenford, South Molton and Filleigh etc. If we set off at a reasonable time from Bristol, you needed to find lunch 3/4 of the way through the journey. Barnstaple was on its own back then.
D
Lovely fish and chip shop in Aldeburgh. I've never had the fish yet, the nuggets are too good. The high street does have that look though. The only reason I've been a few times is my posh friend from Chiswick has a holiday home out there.
As a retired person living in Torquay, unsurprisingly, I agree with that! It's a bit grotty and rundown in places, but there are some really nice bits too. Being a small town, you can be on the beach one minute, and in Screwfix five minutes later.
That said, you can't go wrong anywhere in Devon, north or south coast, IMHO. Only downsides are you have to put up with the grockles during the summer, and the pensioner bus tours from Wales in September and October.
I intend to retire to the north coast of Cornwall for the landscape, the surfing and the vibe. I get what everyone is saying about the tourists but I won't be able to afford the sea view anyway, once you are a mile or two inland you can avoid the crowds if you want to. :)
Serious question about retiring somewhere completely different than where you worked and brought up the kids.
I live in the SE and I’m from the NW, so family is not a concern.
But, you are leaving all the friends you have built up in your area over 20+ years and starting afresh having to meet a whole group of new people. This come with a risk if you head off to a rural coastal community.
My wife would only leave her friends kicking and screaming, and to be honest I realistically the only way it would happen is if I went by myself.
Doesn’t it worry you leaving everything behind and heading off into the coastal unknown?
This is exactly the discussion we had at lunchtime today!
Same can be said for moving abroad to sunnier climes.
The wife and I have been back in the UK for one day short of a month and the weather has been consistently depressing. The UK is not a good place to retire.
I think the best best is to keep your main residence in the town where your friends are, a second home / residential caravan somewhere within a couple of hours of travel and a holiday home abroad where you can get the sun. This gives you the advantage of total flexibility and also your kids can get freebie holidays as well.
We are now seriously looking at something in the Gower peninsular for a mid week retreat.
South Cornwall is my favourite part of the UK for holidays so if I was fortunate enough to own a property there I would, but it's very seasonal, bad traffic in summer and not loads going on inland, so whilst great for a break it's not somewhere I'd live full-time.
Yorkshire is home for me and couldn't think of a better place to live within the UK. We've got big cities, small towns, fantastic villages, dales, moors, peaks, forests, lakes, cliffs and beaches.
You think most people here (or anywhere) could afford to own, let alone run 3 places like that?
Next you’ll be advising that they should have half a dozen Rolexes at each location, which they should NEVER sell.
I have quite a few friends who do this so it is not that unusual.
We are fortunate to have a holiday park home overlooking the sea near Watchet in North Somerset.
We absolutely love the area - plenty to do, great Jurassic coastline for fossil hunting (which I love), and about a three and a half hour drive from Central Beds where we live (about the closest coast that we truly like as we didn't want a five or six hour drive). It's also not too rammed with tourists, and very non-chavvy.
The park itself has lovely facilities and a very friendly ethos.
Costs aren't cheap to do this of course, but the flexibility it gives us is worth a lot.
In the fullness of time, when we retire, we may well sell up and move down to the area permanently.
So clever my foot fell off.
My Mrs often opined about retiring to the coast or near water but those films of awful flooding have put her right off!
Cheers,
Neil.
Just remember; wherever you are in the UK, you're no more than 70 miles from the sea.
Another vote for the New Forest here - it's big enough that it can give you proper isolation (outside peak tourist time) and the coast is easily accessible without having to live on it (which IMO brings all the grockle- and weather-related issues enumerated above). The Forest is also heart-stoppingly beautiful. Mrs Cain and I relocated there for Lockdown 1 so we could look after her folks, and being in the middle of that wonderful spring was just glorious.
The lack of frequent contact with her friends was also a concern for SWMBO when we first considered moving down to Devon. But don't be overly concerned, her gang are only too keen* to come down to see her and stay with us.
*This can be a double-edged sword, due to the attractiveness of where we are (half way between the coast and Dartmoor & half way between Plymouth and Exeter) at times it feels like we're providing a boutique hotel with in-house chauffeur service for them.
R
Ignorance breeds Fear. Fear breeds Hatred. Hatred breeds Ignorance. Break the chain.
Alnmouth in Northumbelrand would be my choice. Great walking on the doorstep, decent smattering of pubs, eating places and indipndent shops, a short drive to some stunning scenery inland and a train station on the outskirts of the village that'll get you to either Newcastle or Edinburgh in quick smart time.
Cheers
Ian
I agree with you 100%.
Bits of the Kent coast were rather nice 30 years ago but have been over run by London ££ and Retail Sheds. I would opt for Sandbanks but Global Warming will soon put the brakes on that!
Not that unusual? Maybe you do know a few people but that’s not at all usual. Very few people own second homes, let alone third ones. Obviously not BTL’s but you weren’t saying that.
Another vote here, if in the UK. We've spent many a delightful August Bank Holiday weekend there. The Frogham and Hyde Country Fair was great fun, loads of great walks and even at high season you could find a way far from the madding crowd and for some years NF was the target, that with time and luck morphed into Spain. The weather.
I think you might find property will be at a premium. All those contractors will need somewhere to live.
Moved from Oxfordshire to West Sussex just outside Brighton 20 years ago. Best move I ever made. House prices have gone mental since so im glad I made the move when I did. Love the coast. Love the Eclectic Brighton Lifestyle and Love the sea.
True, but what if that 70 miles lands you in Hull?
I speak from experience.
Maybe what he's saying is rather than throwing all your eggs in one expensive property basket by the sea, split your budget into three. A caravan by the sea doesn't cost much so it's really just the two properties.
Somewhere between Plockton and Ullapool North West Scotland, Badachro is currently favourite.
38ft LOA yacht, diving gear and compressor for the Western isles.
"Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it's enemy action."
'Populism, the last refuge of a Tory scoundrel'.
Semi rural Nth Essex 5 miles to the coast and i go every day if possible with the dogs just love the different pace from Nth London
Two pics of social distancing and one of the neighbours, the tower is the Port of London radar tower covering the Nth Sea.
I FEEL LIKE I'M DIAGONALLY PARKED IN A PARALLEL UNIVERSE
Looks incredible Mart. I believe you used to live a few miles from me.
Im tempted to jack in London. especially now i no longer need to be office based or worry about commuting.
You have to be careful where you pick with the New Forest. At peak summer times, the traffic can be horrendous, for instance an hour to drive the last 2 miles into Lyndhurst. A31 can be brutal too on a Saturday.
The area north of the A31 around Fritham is a good bet for a nice walk.
You don’t think just ‘two’ properties and a caravan is unrealistic for most people then?
About 1 in 10 people own a second home but that includes BTL owners and ones that holiday let which account for the majority of them. Mick has stated before (many times no doubt) that he doesn’t rent out his Spanish home.
As I said being realistic in the ‘real world’ the majority of people can’t afford a second, let alone a third property to live in.
Indeed i did the Cockfosters kids went from there to Brookmans Park then out of it all , just got to accept a different way of life from London.
I FEEL LIKE I'M DIAGONALLY PARKED IN A PARALLEL UNIVERSE
Fylde coast is good. North shore of Blackpool has some nice places. Scotland of course and Nothumberland is beautiful
This. We had a boat in Lymington for a while when we lived in Greater London. During the season, getting down past Southampton was normally quite quick. Once off the A31 though it tended to go a bit pear shaped.
Only really a problem if you go in busy times, although that's probably 7:30 to 16:00 on a Saturday and just as bad coming back on a Sunday.
Personally, what a lot of people describe as 'the weather problem' is a great deal of the appeal of the coast to me.
I have fond memories of watching thunderstorms over the sea on holidays in Cornwall as a child.
I'd love to love nearer the coast, again but not in holiday season.
M
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Breitling Cosmonaute 809 - What's not to like?
Probably for MOST people, but I think a fair percentage could do it, especially if they're prepared to downscale their base property. Plenty of folk live in a £500,000 house these days. Swap that for a £300,000 one and spend £170,000 on a Spanish apartment and £30k on a caravan. That may be a sensible thing to do, because you'd be splitting time between three places.
Of course it's not going to work if you live in a £170,000 semi and have no capital, but if this discussion was limited to the possibilities for the lowest common denominator, it would be a bit boring.
Following this thread with interest. Seems like a few places get mentioned quite regularly.
I think there was also a thread some years back about what £500k could buy in different parts of the UK - might be time to re-boot that based on the last few posts?
I’ve moved from Cockfosters too , now in Arkley . I regularly cycle to Brookmans park which is lovely and I regret not looking at there before .
This so called FAIR percentage of people that you think could do it, don’t do it. Why? Because it’s just unrealistic. A few do it.
Anyway you can carry on having the same views as Mick, that’s great. I disagree with all you say, so I’m not going to clog up this thread anymore.
Well I wouldn't do it - not because it's unrealistic, but because the more stuff you have the more looking after it needs. It's hassle...for me. But I know plenty of people who do this - or something like it - and take the upkeep hassle in their stride.
I grew up on the cost in Pakefield, Suffolk.
It's an amazing place to live and just a 3 hour costal walk away from Southwold, which is a joy to do!
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Last edited by senraw; 16th November 2020 at 23:24.
Having a chuckle with people thinking a caravan is cheap.
Sold my static in Pembrokeshire in January (just in time with the lockdowns!). 30k initial outlay is of course do-able for many with a reasonable income.
But add the extras and year on year it gets pretty expensive:
In my case 3.6k site fees, £400 insurance, 1k utility bill all per annum. Add fuel costs, we were pretty close living in South Wales, but it was still four gallons return a weekend (double that for many of the cars you see in the what do you drive thread), so easily £100 a month if you go regularly, and the caravan is dead money if you dont.
Add the fact that the nicer sites will stipulate you change the caravan at typically twelve year intervals, at this point it has become worth about a grand, and that's only if you part exchange for another, otherwise you may be paying to get it trucked away.
Many other little extras that all add up also. You end up doubling up on walking boots, coats, flip flops, sunglasses etc etc to leave in the van, because depending on the weather forgetting to take one of these sort of items with you can seriously curtail your activities.
Oh, and you drink and eat out a LOT more than if you stay at home.
Enjoyable? Immensely, wouldn't have traded a minute. Cheap? Hell no.
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Last edited by Ruggertech; 16th November 2020 at 23:33.
I am happy enough living where I am. In Shetland you are never more that 3 miles from the sea. The weather is rough so I can't recommend it for most people.
Northumberland is the only place in England I would willingly live. The history, coastline, walks, the sheer beauty of the place is magnificent. I suspect that the winters are hard though. I only had a couple of them to base that on to be fair.
Not mentioned so far as far as I can see is the Moray Coast in Scotland. Beautiful place, micro climate and well kept quiet roads, cycle track along a disused rail line. Cullen, the home of Cullen Skink, the worlds' best tasting soup. A lot of the properties in places like Portsoy, Cullen, Banff, Findochty etc. have been bought up as holiday lets so the places can be quite dead out of season. A drive will get you to the Inverness - Aberdeen train. Inverness is the gateway to the Highlands. Aberdeen gets you to Edinburgh/Glasgow and all points south. Rail travel is extortionately expensive though for long trips south, but there are plenty of air links. Their are a couple of RAF bases nearby so sudden low-flying aircraft are to be expected.
Scotland is a really relaxed place once out of EDI GLA ABZ imho.
If you are determined to be in England, I hear Skegness is bracing!
Last edited by Templogin; 16th November 2020 at 23:33. Reason: Addition
I rented this house in Amble this August which was a great base - no connection with owner https://www.vrbo.com/en-gb/p8147369
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