form a queue by the caravan 🙂

I moved down to Wokingham from Bolton 11 years ago and really like it – its a nice little town

Yes, the traffic is bad, but i’m based in a great location for:-

Go riding
Get into London
Access to Heathrow & Gatwick
Quick access to the M3, M4 or M40

Nope, its not very hilly, but there is a lot on the doorstep from the Chilterns, Swinley and lots of over good army land

Yes, Wokingham is expensive, but its voted one of the best places in the country to love for a reason – its jolly nice 🙂

Having grown up not far from Reading, and hating it (School in Henley, so obviously reading was full of rough as chavs according to us) and then moving there in my mids 20s to work in wokingham/finchampstead. I reckon for kids its got a lot to offer, mentioned the climbing wall but you have some pretty damn good swimming pool/leisure center things with slides n stuff.

Also a great little bmx track thing near the canal 5 min from the oracle.

The oxford road is pretty crap and there’s are definatly some properly horrible areas but thats pretty much the same for any decent sized english town.

Oh and SWEENEY TODDS pie shop

I should mention i’m now living in Perth Australia and believe it or not there are some things i miss about reading…..

Reading, nicer than Bracknell, just about sums it up.

I’ve stayed in the Hilton up the road from Wokingham, had a few nice pints of London Pride in The Ship, and a nice, if slightly expensive Italian meal in the town. Overall thought the place looked a bit boring to be honest, and the traffic is, for me at least, unbearable.

But there again I happen to work from home a lot these days so have no tolerance for sitting in traffic for an hour a day.

If you lot think it’s crap now, you should have seen it in the 70’s.

I studied and then worked there for a while when the brewery was still in the town and The Hexagon was new. Great years but then I wasn’t really concerned with shopping and the road system in those days; the nightlife was pretty good 🙂

No use to the OP sorry. Sweeney Todds was popular then too, great that it’s still there.

Footnote: I now live overlooking the Wye Valley!

Yes, Wokingham is expensive, but its voted one of the best places in the country to love for a reason – its jolly nice

I’d like to see where this was voted? As a Village/Town it really has nothing going for it, it’s not bad, but if I moved out tomorow and someone asked me to decribe it it would probably sound like

“Wokingham, it’s……………..errrrrrrrr”

There’re just no distinguishing features, it’s a town, it has a few good pubs and restaurants, a rough bit to avoid, it’s easy to get out of and house prices are astronomical. It’s not bad, but that doesn’t make it good (just better than Bracknell, Reading and Slough).

To put it in perspective, I live for 18 months in a former coal mining village on the northern fringe of the Yorkshire moors, not a picture postcard one with holliday lets, sea views and nice pub. One where you can still buy a freshly decorated terraced house for £35,000! My missus (who’s lived in Winnersh/Wokingham all her life) prefered it!

I moved back to Reading after living in one of the most beautiful cities in Europe because missed it and my mates. Traffic is awful but I do not drive at the weekend just bike everywhere and live on the side of the town that’s has easy access to for the motorway. There are some very dodgy areas so keep away from them. Handy for the airport, great countryside, rivers and festival and a very good night life if you know where to go.

I lived in reading for a while. It was fine. I’ve lived in worse places that’s for sure. It is heavily over populated which makes the roads very busy but if you can commute by bike it’s fine. I then moved to Wokingham which again was ok. Nice little town but very very overpopulated. Traffic was a nightmare. I worked in Crowthorne and I could walk home from work quicker than I could drive it some days which I did quite a bit until I replaced my bike and then I rode pretty much everywhere.
Eventually moved to crowthorne where we lived for a couple of years before moving back up to the midlands.
All in all I enjoyed living down there. It is pretty crowded and very expensive but if you can find ways to cope with that it’s not a bad place to live I don’t think.

http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/349277/Town-with-good-schools-and-low-crime-is-best-for-families

If its in the Daily Express it must be right 🙂

It is heavily over populated which makes the roads very busy but if you can commute by bike it’s fine.

I can’t say my cycling trips through Reading have been enjoyable…

I lived in Reading for three years when I was at University there (20+ years ago). Seemed a very odd town, huge ethnic ghettos – Asian around Palmer Park, North of Cemetery junction (where we lived) and then a big Afro-caribean area where we all went to buy dope…

I lived there for ten years until recently. Its ok plus is some stunning road riding from the door step, excellent mountinbiking from the door in the summer, its got all the other shit people like about towns shops cinema etc. Bad points is the cost of housing, we couldnt afford to live in a nice area so moved when mini me was 2. Schools are ok although secondaries suffer due to the grammas in town a little. We have moved to Thatcham so I know juat travel into Reading for work.

Road riding was great, lovely scenery and hills just outside the town.

Lived on Watlington Street (pretty much in the centre) while a student.
One break-in and one attempted break-in (with me in the house both times) two people shot in adjacent street, someone beaten uo in the street outside (he had broken into to someone else’s house and they had caught him), not bad for two years.
Traffic is truely horrendous. I hate going round on my own after dark (32yr old bloke!)
Go to Henley

river and rail are real traffic limiters and so (imo) are council planners, gf and I considered Caversham but decided we didn’t want the walk to facilities and noise (I lived in Burghfield Common which has sweet fanny adams) however London rail is v good, note that some other stations to W etc do a there + Reading + Slough train, good biking to N/NW, however quite a few friends live in Lower Earley and they’ve quite happy and a bit of biking to S (I found it a bit of a suburban lookalike jungle), sort if you want a ‘busybustlypushy’ environment (but at least have ALL facilities even if the drive and parking can be an rse or expensive) then maybe have a look

I’ve always quite liked Twyford by the way

I work in Basingstoke and prefer it to Reading – defined centre, smaller, good biking to S and around,

Traffic is truely horrendous. I hate going round on my own after dark (32yr old bloke!)

man up FFS. Its no worse than any other big town.
Henly is **** horrible!

man up FFS. Its no worse than any other big town

It bloody well is. Population is half that of Cardiff and the traffic is way worse.

Sorry yes traffic is **** nightmarish. I was referring to his comments re crime and danger.

Lived in Twyford for 10 years. Quiet friendly largish village 5 miles from Reading. Reading is a bit like all the M4 corridor larger towns and a bit meh! Traffic horrendous. Not very attractive. Unless a night out or cinema I rarely go into Reading. Still there are plenty of nice places around Reading to live; Caversham, Wargrave, Twyford, Hurst, Wokingham. Don’t have to live in Reading itself. Personally I find Maidenhead a bit of a hole.

Twyford works for me. Work is 10mins by car or 30 mins by bike. 5 mins from station 25 min train into London. Chilterns, Swinley, Army land all great local riding. Only living here because of work really, but can think of far worse places to live.

The “wokingham” that was voted the nicest place to live was wokingham district, wich included places like Ascot, Sunningdale and other ‘prosperous’ areas…

Saying that I spent nigh on 10 years there (only just moved to austria) and wokie wasn’t that bad. It helps if you have a good friend network there. For me the closeness of Swinley (pre trail centre), Chilterns and the north downs was great. I liked some of the pubs in the town, they really looked after their beer…

Strangely enough I only went to Reading maximum of 5 times in the whole time! 😕

I moved down to reading from Oxford about 10 years ago, first lived in the town, then moved out to Pangbourne area.

As others have said, I’d reccomend living in one of the train-linked villages/towns nearby; Pangbourne, Goring, Thatcham, Aldermaston, Mortimer, Cholsey, to name a few. If you live to the west, you have great access to the M4 for trips to South Wales trail centres in 2 hours or so, pretty quick down to the south coast, and local riding there’s the Chilterns, Berkshire Downs and a short hop to Swinley/ North Downs. Not biking, but the Thames is pretty lovely too.

Reading isn’t the finest night out, but for the half a dozen nights I go out there a year, the Allied Arms, Retreat on St John’s street, 0 degrees and The Nag’s Head on Russell street all do me fine for lots of great Ale. The annual beer festival is a good one too, in April/May. The picture house cinema in Henley is good, and the University Film Theatre is great for left field films. Otherwise, it’s an hour into London for everything else.

Slightly tediously, but pretty useful is that it has a load of supersized shopping outlets like Costco, B&Q, Wickes, and an Uber-IKEA development planned for 2015. Pretty nasty, but useful when you have a young family and property to sort out.

Like a lot of places, it’s what you make of it.

I’m pretty sure neither ascot or Sunningdale are Wokingham district. Pretty sure Ascot is Bracknell Forest.

Sorry yes traffic is **** nightmarish. I was referring to his comments re crime and danger.

I just don’t feel safe there in the city centre on my own.
Other big cities I know quite well and am fine with include Edinburgh, Dundee, Lincoln, Oxford, Cardiff.
The places I have felt the least safe in are Reading and Birmingham. My experiences of the crime whilst living in Reading back that up, likewise a former girlfriend lived in Birmingham so I’ve spent a lot of time there, that’s definitely somewhere to avoid!