ohdearydear

We are looking at locations to go back to next year and so far Norwich is coming out on top - not too far but not too close to family, an area that we'll hopefully be able to find work and also some rural areas within commuter distance to the city centre.

Does anyone have any experience of Norwich - which areas to avoid living, any good villages (ideally we'd like to have a good primary school, not have to spend an hour on the train to get to work and places to walk the dogs!) or anything else that you think it's worth knowing.

Had a look at the housing on rightmove within a 3 mile radius and it seems affordable but realise that a lot can change in a year.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

brits1

Hi we did a recon in early March 2012 to Norwich and the coast....it is a lovely olde worlde City, we called into local estate agents who were really helpful with advice of the good and "bad" areas....not many "bad areas" there are 3 larger local authority housing estates which we drove around and they did not seem bad, we looked at a few homes in Thorpe St.Andrew..a nice suburb not far from the City Centre but near the river and a nice country feel to it....that was our fav area for us anyway, we also drove to Eaton which is nice just passed the hospital....mainly newish builds but with original old and quaint buildings. We drove along the coast from Yarmouth (nice sea front) but the town looked a bit sad in parts but the further up the coast you drive...well its lovely, loved Cromer and took a long drive back to Norwich through country villages and the Norfolk Broads Wroxham etc...all lovely. Not to sure on primary schools etc but yes its like the England of old you'd imagined....if I recall we were told it was just over an hours train ride into London. The Centre was nice and clean with a great choice of shops etc for the size of the City....yes certainly a lovely place/area.

iaink

+1 on nice place to live. I left there for Canada 15 years ago, but not because anything was bad about it.

If I returned to the UK it would be near the top of my list.

ohdearydear

Thank you both for your replies...I was a bit concerned when I googled 'is Norwich a nice place to live' (stupidly - steer clear of google in these situations!) because the first thing that came up was some website I'd never heard of called chavtowns (or something equally classy along those lines!) that slated it.

It's great to hear from people that have actually looked around, spoken to estate agents and actually lived there! It's still top of our list so thank you again. It looks beautiful in pictures and seems as though there is a lot to keep us busy when/if we move there.

Piff Poff

I lived in Norwich in the early '90's for a couple of years (not Uni) I LOVED it and would consider moving there. Brundall at the time was a lovely 'larger' village.

J.JsOH

We live in West Norfolk and make frequent trips to Norwich because we enjoy the city. There seems to be an energy there, upbeat, maybe because it is a Uni city, and if we needed / wanted to move to a city then it would likely be Norwich for the diversity of shops, the mainstream shows, the decent pubs and arty / literary cafe culture, historic stuff, good bus services, the train link and roads to Cambridge & London and the proximity of countryside and coast.
There is a limited airport with UK connection, charter flight and only Amsterdam as the single international scheduled connection, but it is not so far to travel to Stansted.
If you wanted to drive westward towards Midlands and North it is a bit of a poor road (limited dual carriageway) getting over towards the A1.
City centre has a vibrant night club scene that extends to 4 a.m. - no, I not attended but I heard them from my central hotel room.
Regret I don't know the city well enough to offer suggestions for areas to live / avoid.

Piff Poff

Is Pedros still around? Hmm yummy.