Yet Another Cycling Forum
General Category => The Knowledge => OT Knowledge => Topic started by: joy of essex on 10 January, 2019, 02:05:29 pm
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I may be spending more time there..
What should I know ?
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It's what they did with all the left over hills when they finished making Great Britain.
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The hills I know about. I spend a lot of time in Ventnor.
Southampton though...
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...is a dump. The people are mental.
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Excellent ferry port though.
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When there's a cruise ship docked, it smells like Mordor Central.
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They are on different planets.
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The Isle of Wight is a brilliant 1950s theme park.
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Excellent ferry port though.
But only to the IOW surely?
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So from the Summer onwards, I may be based in Southampton, largely to spend more time with the GLW...
Though we would like to eventually establish some form of residence in Ventnor...
Is Southampton, good , bad or indifferent...
So far, all I know of it is the Marina, the Ferry to Cowes, a Wetherspoons, the Train station, and the xmas party at a Nov Hotel...
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As with any city, it has its good and bad points.
Great areas just outside the perimeter for cycling, New forest, Salisbury plan etc
South's best football team.
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As with any city, it has its good and bad points.
This. My ex lives there, and my daughters grew up there. They lived in Millbrook, an area known as Regents Park. Typical 30's semis estate, of which there are loads. Went to the local schools and on to Uni's, seems an OK area. The centre is typical 70's/80's/90's/2000's commercial mix. It's a small city, not much more to say really.
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Having lived for most of my life within a six mile radius of Southampton I find it OK, there are places like Thornhill that I wouldn't go there after dark, but that is just me.
The top end of Southampton round Bevois Valley has got worse in the last four years with drunks/drug addicts and homelessness and I was quite surprised when I went to the hospital in that area, I've been told that Southampton centre is full of homeless people in the evening, I don't know myself as I don't go there as I do all my shopping on line.
In my area North Baddesley is very quiet and after 7 PM you hardly see anybody and as far as I know not much crime.
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So from the Summer onwards, I may be based in Southampton, largely to spend more time with the GLW...
Though we would like to eventually establish some form of residence in Ventnor...
Is Southampton, good , bad or indifferent...
So far, all I know of it is the Marina, the Ferry to Cowes, a Wetherspoons, the Train station, and the xmas party at a Nov Hotel...
You may want to take a look at the Southern Parishes; Netley Abbey, Hamble, West End, Hedge End. Just outside the city boundaries so not as built up but close enough to get into the city centre without too much difficulty.
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I was brought up in Netley Abbey, and worked in Southampton for 20 years. I have now retired, to Wales...
If you want to refer to Regents Park, don't refer to Millbrook, which is not the same, most of Millbrook is an appalling shithole, and dangerous. I used to work for the council, on social housing maintenance, and was threatened or attacked there more often than anywhere, even in St Mary's which was my usual patch. I dislike Southampton intensely, but I have probably experienced the worst of it (drugs, prostitution, violence, death), and not seen much of the best. Thornhill is not brilliant, but is much better than it used to be. I am not convinced of the realism of working in Southampton and living in Ventnor. Make careful study of transport costs and timings, and prepare for huge transport expense, that is a very expensive bit of water to cross, but not quite as bad as the much shorter crossing of Portsmouth Harbour from Gosport (I worked there, too!).
Netley (NOT to be confused with Netley Marsh, which is somewhere else entirely) is OK I suppose, a large village, which is primarily a dormitory area for Southampton. It has a railway station, but check the service frequency, and it has access to countryside.
I'm a bit jaded about the area, having lived in it or near to it for 60+ years, and now live in very rural Powys. If you want to ask specifics, feel free to ask, I certainly won't give you a romantic notion of it, but my view is probably a bit too jaded to be what most people would experience.
I would say that the area is generally fine, but pick where to actually live, very carefully. There are some lovely bits around there, so look carefully and you'll find them.
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My wife did the research on living in Ventnor and working Southampton.
We have evaluated that option and decided against it. Commuting across London is cheaper and slightly quicker, but not as much fun.
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Any views on the Marina?
That is the old docks..
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My wife did the research on living in Ventnor and working Southampton.
We have evaluated that option and decided against it. Commuting across London is cheaper and slightly quicker, but not as much fun.
I once had a colleague who commuted from the Isle of Wight to London. I think he stayed up in town during the week but I can't remember for sure.
(At another job, I had a colleague who commuted daily between Bath and London, so nothing would surprise me.)
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When I worked at John Brown in Port Solent, there were several who commuted daily from the IOW. There were parking wars in Southsea, as many of the commuting IOW residents kept a second car on the mainland.
As for longer distance commuting, at Fluor in Farborough, one of the materials engineers "commuted" weekly from Barrow-in-Furness.
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https://www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/17357996.crime-numbers-in-southampton-rise-for-fourth-year-in-a-row/
Crime numbers in Southampton rise for fourth year in a row
God I didn't know it was this bad
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Weekly commutes are common. We have a few people in the office (South Bank, London) who weekly commute from Coventry, Swansea and (the winner) Brussels.
Longest daily commute (for someone who comes in and goes home every day) that I know of here is Margate, and they drive.
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A colleague of mine commutes from Bath to the South Bank (though given changes aboard the mothership, I guess she won't be doing that for much longer). I know a couple of people who commute from Bristol. It's financially mad, of course, though the journey is only about 1.5 hours (my train from the leafy jungles of Surrey, just 20 miles shy of central London can take an hour unless I pedal over to the faster line and get that, in which case it's 35 minutes).
I've never actually heard anyone say anything good about Southampton.
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I've never actually heard anyone say anything good about Southampton.
"It's not Portsmouth."
Will that do?
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I've never actually heard anyone say anything good about Southampton.
"It's not Portsmouth."
Will that do?
Actually that's what the folk of Portsmouth say about Southampton...
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Any views on the Marina?
That is the old docks..
Any marina type development is plagued with that curse of slapdash yachtsmen, the heady (and effing annoying in my view) sound of slapping halyards. Actually Ocean Village is part for the course for such places, if you like the trendified village within a city sort of life. I know folk to whom that does apply, and they have been happy there, but its expensive, and don't ever expect to have visitors wishing to park, 'cos they can't, well not without much juggling of restricted passes, and they've probably been towed away before they can get to the resident to get the pass, to stick in the car. Unless you are actually in Ocean Village, its quite hard to see the sea, or rather Southampton Water, because access to it is strangely restricted. If the comings and going of ocean liners (OK, monstrous cruise ships) interests you, then fine. I used to work on the 3rd floor of an office at the bottom of Millbrook Road East, which looked out onto the docks, and visitors were always asking what exotic cruise ship that was, that they could see out of the window. We all ended up having the AIS website on our favourites, to answer those questions. There are of course also new homes on the Eastern side of the Itchen, in Woolston, on the site of the old Thornycroft shipyard, where generations of my family have worked. This is called Centenary Quay. I think they are a tad pricy, but only you can judge that. apart form that, Woolston has degenerated into something of a shithole over the years, but I think the regeneration of Centenary Quay is bringing it back up, and I see there is a new Council Housing office and library near there, which has been built since I left in 2011. You still have to pay to cross the Itchen bridge back into the main part of the city, but residents do get some sort of discount. Allegedly they were going to stop the tolls once they'd paid for it, but the City of Southampton is desperately cash strapped (which is the reason they paid a small fortune to make me redundant!) due to the repeated central govt cuts.
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Ocean Village is exactly where I might be headed for . You have described it perfectly, but missed out the nearby Spoons .
I must confess that Southampton and its docks rather reminded me of Liverpool. They have a similar history.
The long term plan is that we (the GLW & I ) mostly live & work in Ventnor whilst recognising that we , probably me, will also need to working in London for some of the time. Though I am trying to see if I can get work in the NHS bureaucracy on the Island.
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Ah, well I would miss out the Spoons, 'cos I'm not a fan of them. Cosy country pubs are more my sort of thing, I'm not keen on cities at all.
You do realise that if you go to live in IOW, then you'll have to marry your sister? That's the usual sort of "jokey" comment made about IOW folk. Make sure you really have checked out the costs of living in IOW (getting stuff delivered has extra costs, for example) and of the necessary travelling to "civilisation". We get a bit of that in rural Powys, as any shopping involves a fair bit of travel. We got given some M&S vouchers for Christmas, now where the hell is the nearest M&S? Probably not in Wales, and not within 50 miles. I also got sent a cheque by a company which does have my bank details. Yeah, thanks for that, now I have to travel to Shrewsbury to bank it...
I don't have a huge experience of IOW, other than many years ago, regularly travelling there for work, usually by hoovercraft. Of course, Southampton is pretty well the birthplace of such technology and where they are still built (Griffin Hoverwork), and I'm old enough to remember SRN1 being tested, off Netley beach.
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You can post cheques to your bank - I've been doing that for many years.
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The NHS on the IoW is interesting - having to provide District General services* for a population that would be considered too small on the mainland.
* Because of the isolation by road
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Re Marriage - I come from Norfolk. I know what is normal
Yes, speaking to a colleague about the Island and didn't realise the population was that small.
If that was a DGH in London then there would be "Plans" for it.