What is Great Yarmouth like to live?? And what schools???

Question

Hi,

We are looking at moving to Great Yarmouth. I would be moving with 6 kids aged between 3 and 12.

Whats it like to live there??? I can only find out what its like to holiday there.

The house is 2 minutes from the sea.

Also what schools can you recommend???? ... i will have 5 children in infants/junior and 1 in senior school.

We are going over for a visit in the next week or so but any advice/info would be gratefully recieved.

Thanks

Answer 1

I concurr with what has been said. It is a very sad place with no opportunities and pretty violent behaviour. There was quite an influx of Glaswegians about twenty years ago into Council Housing which brought about other problems.

Answer 2

I would recommend spending a lot of time here before you commit to anything. SPECIFICALLY come here in WINTER when the weather is foul, everything is closed and everyone you meet will be an unemployed local.

Where is this house exactly? If it's Marine parade or the Wellesley Road area then I'd forget it right now as those are sh*tholes... seriously... don't even think about parking a car in those areas. No one else does and if you do; you'll find out why!

If you want some other prime examples of places NOT to live then try visiting Cobholm, Litchfield Road and The Barrack Estate. I guarantee that a single visit to each of these areas of Yarmouth will show you just how low humanity can go and ensure that you never... ever... move here! It's broken glass, torched bins and phone boxes and dog turds as far as the eye can see.

In the Summer, Yarmouth tends to fill up with tourists and it can be quite different to the Winter months when the whole place literally closes down.

I've lived 10 miles North of Gt. Yarmouth for 20 years and I really wouldn't recommend living here. There are almost no jobs here. Unless you are trained and willing to work in the oil industry or you don't mind shop work then you will have serious problems finding employment. The Yarmouth area (often Lowestoft) regularly tops the list of highest unemployment rates in Great Britain and also often comes in at number 1 on the list of teen pregnancy rates. Does that give you some idea of who lives here? Oh and we also have the country's most violent night clubs. Norwich does officially... but most people I know (including bouncers) go to Norwich because it's safer than Yarmouth at night. Taxis actually refuse to pick up on the main road for clubs in Yarmouth because so many cabbies have been attacked and robbed. The police and ambulances have even been known to say no to minor incidents in that area.

Yarmouth is definitely not the happy, sunny, smiley place that it can sometimes appear to be to people on short stays. As mentioned; it has astronomical unemployment and is rife with anti-social behaviour. It is also becoming home to a recently flourishing Portuguese, Polish and Kosovan population. What's really funny is that whenever I book time off work, Yarmouth always seems to be full of them during office hours... funny that they should always be taking time off their jobs at the same time as me eh?

The schools in Yarmouth are known for being rough and full of chavs. The school I went to had an influx of students from Yarmouth at the end of Year 11 because a whole bunch of them managed to get expelled just before exams. Yarmouth High and Caister High in particular are repeated poor achievers in terms of GCSE results.

Other things you should know is that house prices here are soaring. With all the people coming in from places like London (in particular) buying up second homes and buying to let, many people who live here can't match their low (minimum) wages to the artificially (Londoner) inflated house prices.

Parking is also a huge problem. Yarmouth never had an abundance of parking places, but recently there are far more cars here and many free parking places have been turned in to permit only. In the busy hours, don't even expect to find a place to park in a pay & display or even on double yellows. They'll all be taken!

Perhaps the biggest problem with Yarmouth though is that there is really NOTHING to do here! If you've only seen it in Summer then you'll find it hard to believe but after about early August the whole area closes. There's ONE cinema... but that has very limited opening times and doesn't show all films. Other than that; it's just pubs. Maybe that's got something to do with why all of Yarmouth's inhabitants are such sloped-head, knuckle dragging, Stella swilling, pimple faced, tattooed, wife beating, happy slapping, Burberry wearing Neanderthals?

One final thing: During the Summer (when Yarmouth MAY appear like an acceptable place to live) if you decide to live here you will be driven CRAZY by all the holiday makers. They dodder around in a daze, have senior moments, often have no respect for anyone, get in your way, drive at 20 miles an hour in national zones, and stand in the middle of roads expecting all cars to just wait until they walk off... assuming that EVERYONE is on holiday just like them and that no one actually lives here. If you have something to do or someplace to go then you'll feel like wringing their necks!

EDIT: Nelson Road: South of the River in Gorleston right? As I'm looking to move house soon myself I know that there are some fairly cheap houses around there. From my limited knowledge of that area I'd say it's not the worst part of Yarmouth... but *I'd* rather not be living there! I definitely wouldn't recommend raising kids there either.

If you want to get in to Norfolk then maybe Norwich would be good for you. It is a nice city without most of the problems of Yarmouth. Also: you could try looking at houses in the villages around Yarmouth IF YOU CAN AFFORD IT! Many of them are nice quiet places to live providing you don't mind all the Londoners moving in! Of course you would still have the problem of finding a job which would probably still force you to travel in to Yarmouth...

Answer 3

I only knew it when I was growing up many years ago and it was always an outpost of civilisation, or more accurately a dump. Unless it's changed for the better x 1,000,000, I wouldn't be taking kids there.

From the link below, it hasn't. It starts on holidays but goes on to mention the type of people who live there ... okay, it's probably exaggerated for effect but I still wouldn't touch it.

Edit: up-to-the-minute and obviously excellent advice from axe muppet above. Don't do it to your kids!

I grew up in Norwich and that's still a very beautiful city, a better class of occupant (in some parts anyway :) ) and lots more to do for kids and adults.