I Have to move to Essex, Im fine  with that but if there's any Essex Girls/Boys out there, I could do with some help. with wheres nice to live ,not so nice etc. I would like to live somewhere that has good dog walking, not worried about shops and nightlive(Boring). I will go and look for myself but its nice hearing whats what from the horses mouth so to speak! Thanks for any help.

It all depends on where you need to be, Hooch!

If you need to commute to London, you would be better to consider somewhere inside the Brentwood/Chelmsford/Southend area to keep commuting costs down.    There are nice little villages/small towns in the north/east of the country - around Maldon/Danbury/Colchester.  Billericay/Brentwood/Shenfield/Ongar are all nice, but pricey.    Grays is good if you like shopping (Lakeside Shopping Centre is 5 mins away).   Basildon, Southend, Canvey and Grays all suffer bad press - I don't really think that they are much worse than anywhere else.

Chelmsford and Colchester schools are good - always up in the top 10.   There are lots of good walking areas - think of Epping Forest, there are the beaches of Southend, Canvey, there are estuary walks, country parks etc.    If you want to PM me, I'll help where I can!

REgards
Margot

Regards

Margot

I'd avoid West Essex like the plague as Stansted Airport is expanding and house prices are likely to stay highish, also LOTS of house building will be going on, so you could end up in the middle of a building site :) We do have Hatfield Forest near which is super for doggies. Just depends where you have to get to for work etc - the traffic can be pretty horrendous (M25 etc) so choose your place carefully :)

Margot's covered the rest :)

Daisy

I live in Tiptree were the famous jam is made, lived here 36 years, seen lots of changes but still a nice place to live,
there are also some lovely little villages round us like Messing were i take Toby for walks, Mersea island is a short drive from us Toby likes going on the beach there,

Good luck Heidi

I work in Grays and live in Barking and would not wish either on anyone!! LOL

Definately head for Chelmsford - I lived there during my student days and it is so pretty and very civilised in comparison to other Essex towns!

i live in harlow and it gets a lot of bad press but we have a lot of great places for dog walks which are only a short drive away and near enough to london and stanstead but not too near. like all towns it has its nice bits and bad bits. we love going to hatfield or epping forest both very near. good luck

i live in grays and work in tilbury/chadwell, its fairly quiet where i live as we are actually in 'south stifford' but due to the chafford development the post office dropped the stifford bit and says its grays.
there are loads of places to walk the dogs near me, altouhg you do have to travel at times, but there is always the sterotyping of being an 'essex girl'. When i was trying to get into the army when asked where i was from id say im from grays, everyonr took that no probs, then once i got rumbled when i answered im from grays someone else said 'thats near southend isnt it?' to which everyone clicked and realised that i was from essex which is when you get all the jibes :)

tanya