Best place to live in the UK?

[Gimlet]

The whole of the UK is too over-populated now. The Scottish highlands have been ruined by tourism. Wales is full of braying middle class power couples living the good life on toy farms surrounded by glamping pods. The entire west country is an extended London suburb, the Lake district is a theme park and everywhere east of Winchester and as far north as York has been obliterated under a tidal wave of concrete.

The only place in England I'd consider is Northumberland but the middle class mass immigration refugees from London and the home counties who've cashed in their vast house buying budgets have discovered it through TV shows and it won't be long before they ruin that as well. The Scottish borders and Dumfries and Galloway are still beautiful but they're becoming more popular as well as the highlands have become over run with camper vans.
Anglesey is still nice and it has one of the best tracks in the UK. Northern Ireland is a good call too but the Antrim coast is fast turning into the new Cornwall. You won't have a square inch to yourself for very long.

[Treadeager]

The whole of the UK is too over-populated now. The Scottish highlands have been ruined by tourism. Wales is full of braying middle class power couples living the good life on toy farms surrounded by glamping pods. The entire west country is an extended London suburb, the Lake district is a theme park and everywhere east of Winchester and as far north as York has been obliterated under a tidal wave of concrete.

The only place in England I'd consider is Northumberland but the middle class mass immigration refugees from London and the home counties who've cashed in their vast house buying budgets have discovered it through TV shows and it won't be long before they ruin that as well. The Scottish borders and Dumfries and Galloway are still beautiful but they're becoming more popular as well as the highlands have become over run with camper vans.
Anglesey is still nice and it has one of the best tracks in the UK. Northern Ireland is a good call too but the Antrim coast is fast turning into the new Cornwall. You won't have a square inch to yourself for very long.

Cheer Up Gimlet ! This was supposed to be a " feel good " thread ! Me . I still love Pembrokeshire and the Oban area for boating .

[Gimlet]

I'm sorry. It's a beautiful country over run with human beings. I was born in the wrong century.
If you're a boatie, the entire west coast of Scotland from the Mull of Kintyre, Oban, the western isles all the way up the Minch to the Butt of Lewis are as good as you can get for boating, and Lewis and Harris have the best beaches on the planet.
Come to that the west coast of Ireland is pretty damn good too, especially Galway.

[Monstyr]

The west coast up here is still good during the week, its only the weekends that seem infected with campers and tourist bus wagon trains.
Just pick an area that you 'have to go to' anywhere in the country, as opposed to being able to pass through on the way to anywhere else.

[Bigyin]

Norfolk and Suffolk coastlines sound right up your street..... As for Lowestoft being proper rough Oulton Broad is on the outskirts of it, has a marina and lots of very expensive homes with their own docks as well as a lot of decent stuff in your budget

For 300-400K the only issue is the Londonite second homes in some rural villages driving up the prices like Southwold for example. Stupid money and almost London prices as many are now holiday homes. I live a ten minute walk from the coast in Hemsby in Norfolk (away from all the holiday parks and amusements) and prices here are still within acceptable range although some of the new builds on an estate about 100m away are overpriced with a 4 bed with garage and fairly small garden at 425K

[Taipan]

I'd say Leigh-on-Sea but £3-400k won't even get you much of a flat there. The other place i'd live is Maldon/Heybridge/Goldhanger but again I think the budget would be too low for your spec of house. I'd be surprised if you could get anywhere coastal and near a Marina in the sarf east for that budget tbh? That said if you've cash on the hip then I imagine its a brilliant time to buy what with CV19, Brexit etc. House prices have dropped round here and so have rents and not sure how long it'll take or them to creep back up?

[wheelnut]

Something like this?

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-fo ... 27970.html

That's a lot of house for the money, but the location isn't somewhere that appeals to be honest, I've only been to Doncaster once and I wasn't a fan.
Whitby was nice, but I'm not sure it's for us.

I'm from the north UK, but I definitely find that the south is a lighter and less miserable place to be, I don't fancy Scotland either.
I've fancied Suffolk for a while, but I've been warned away from Lowestoft, apparently it's proper rough.

Where we are is reasonably quiet, nice house for the money, and great roads in the Trough of Bowland, but we just fancy somewhere down south, and close to a marina to moor a yacht.

We’re about 100 miles north of Doncaster - did you mean Darlington?

I’m the other way, I feel better the further North I go and if it wasn’t for employment constraints we would probably live in the north of Scotland.

The exception from that is Norfolk, we love it there but it’s a fucker of a place to get to and from.

[Gimlet]

I could happily live on St Kilda if it wasn't for the feckin cruise ships and day trippers.
That was a forgotten place until some overgrown Blue Peter presenters made a TV programme about it and now the human plague has swamped that as well.
The property is a little round down though and the marina needs work.

[Treadeager]

Gimlet.....try North Rona !

[moth]

I could happily live in Hayle, Cornwall. Not too touristy and great location. Went down there every year for 25 years as my pal had the Bucket of Blood Pub.

I'd happily live in St. Ives, if wasn't for the bloody tourists

...and the lack of parking because of the bloody tourists.

[cheb]

I could happily live on St Kilda if it wasn't for the feckin cruise ships and day trippers.
That was a forgotten place until some overgrown Blue Peter presenters made a TV programme about it and now the human plague has swamped that as well.
The property is a little round down though and the marina needs work.

Cruise ships ans day trippers? Chinny reckon. It's a couple of hours from where I am in a good RIB. Forgotten since when? Evacuated in the 1930's and a radar base since the 1950's. That's not a long time to be forgotten. Granted there's no longer a permanent population there, SNH volunteers in the summer, and the military base is only manned part of the year.

[Bigyin]

The exception from that is Norfolk, we love it there but it’s a fucker of a place to get to and from.

It does help keeping the casual visitors away

Its not so bad now if you are coming from the South as the A11 is now dualled all the way to Naaarwich but from the north or west its still a pain in the arse along single carriageways like the A17 and A47 (which has also been partially dualled now) to get to the county border

[moth]

I'd happily live in St. Ives, if wasn't for the bloody tourists

...and the lack of parking because of the bloody tourists.

My mates family have a restaurant down there and they love it, but more recently we were disappointed to find that it had turned into Newquay.

My grandparents went to St Ives every year and I have brilliant memories of going down there with them, but it really disappointed us.
Last time we were in Cornwall we stayed in Falmouth and stayed on that side of the county, it seems a bit more like Cornwall should be, IYSWIM. Traffic was a bit of a pain though.

Saying that I have a mate (ex-Olympic athlete) who goes down to St Ives (and Newquay) at least half a dozen times a year, all year round and he loves it. He's not a knucklehead either, big family man and isn't a fan of slot machines and theme pubs, so he must know something I don't.

Yeah, the last time I was there (nearly 20 years ago) it was going downhill a bit. A pity, St. Ives was great in the 70s and 80s.

[Dodgy69]

Forget st ives....its st agnes you want. Lovely little place. Old traditional Pubs, chippy, chemist, church, few shops, nice beach and some lovely hilly walks by the old tin mines. My bro lives there.

[Yorick]

Forget st ives....its st agnes you want. Lovely little place. Old traditional Pubs, chippy, chemist, church, few shops, nice beach and some lovely hilly walks by the old tin mines. My bro lives there.

We used to ride up there from Hayle. Lovely coast road through Gwithian and Porteath.

[Trogladyte]

Felpersham is nice. It's big enough to have some life in it, and small enough to be able to walk most places in the centre. It's got a beautiful cathedral, and having a university means there is plenty of nightlife and high jinks. An it's within easy reach of Borchester.

[Gimlet]

Cruise ships ans day trippers? Chinny reckon. It's a couple of hours from where I am in a good RIB. Forgotten since when? Evacuated in the 1930's and a radar base since the 1950's. That's not a long time to be forgotten. Granted there's no longer a permanent population there, SNH volunteers in the summer, and the military base is only manned part of the year.

I was down for a Scottish National Trust working party myself back in June 2007. The day before I was due to fly to Inverness they canceled the trip because the island had run too low on drinking water following an exceptionally hot dry spell. The trip had taken a lot of organising and I couldn't bear the thought of unpacking and just going back to work the next day, and I had two flights from Bristol to Inverness and on to Stornoway paid for and I couldn't get a refund. Plus there were B&Bs booked in Leverburgh. So I thought sod it, took the flights and the B&Bs and went anyway, hired a car and spent three weeks on Harris and Lewis.

Even back then the were two passenger boats taking day trippers to St Kilda operating out of Leverburgh. They went out pretty much every day, weather permitting, full up. I'm told by friends I made in Leverburgh on that trip that since then cruise ships regularly anchor in Village Bay and the island has become a bucket list stopover for visiting yachties. Many TV shows have been made of the place since then and its public profile has increased enormously.
I was bitterly disappointed I didn't get to go. I missed the last chance to visit the place when it was still left in peace and I wouldn't want to go now.

[Le_Fromage_Grande]

Lowestoft isn't proper rough, it's a run down seaside town with high (for East Anglia) unemployment, the beach is superb.
Lowestoft is less rough than the centre of Stafford was in the early 90s, to give it a contrast to somewhere you'll know, but I haven't been out in Stafford since about 1993.

But I don't think you'd be looking at Lowestoft anyway.
Beccles looks nice, but I've never lived there, so it might not be.

[rodbargee]

North Yorkshire moors Is a nice place to live Whitby's close Lots of hunting shooting Fishing around as well as nice villages or towns if you prefer, Good value for money too. No speed cameras, quite a few vans though.

[Horse]

I'd say Leigh-on-Sea but £3-400k won't even get you much of a flat there. The other place i'd live is Maldon/Heybridge/Goldhanger but again I think the budget would be too low for your spec of house. I'd be surprised if you could get anywhere coastal and near a Marina in the sarf east for that budget tbh? That said if you've cash on the hip then I imagine its a brilliant time to buy what with CV19, Brexit etc. House prices have dropped round here and so have rents and not sure how long it'll take or them to creep back up?

Just checked prices. Friends sold their three bed 30s semi in Newbury for 370k, bought a 4 bed, all en-suite, detached, place within walking distance of a marina, just outside of Maldon, for 450k.