Places to live?

Hi,

We are looking at moving to Okehampton, and just wondering around any places to avoid? We are considering the eastern side of town, as there are quite a few affordable properties around there. Is this a decent area (just want a quite area without yobs, really!)?

Thanks,angerball

Okehampton I think is a safe and friendly place to live. I moved back to oke after having kids as it is a safe place to bring them up.If you are bad then people know about you! we know about the rapist and if anyone sees him hes in trouble- he would be dum to come back here!!
However the council are letting the people of Okehampton down!where is our 2nd school? the town should have had a 2nd school before it allowed all the new houses to be built!!  The hospital ?  - my neighbour has to travel by ambulance to exeter 4/5 times a week for dialysis,  we have a hospital here!! the maternity unit- I dont know the details but they are not allowing new mothers to stay overnight. it is mad.
We pay the same licence fee here and yet get a fraction of the tv/radio channels. water bills are double!!

The answer may be to live just outside Okehampton and travel in.

Moving to Okehampton, why ?, are you retired ?, if so the East end of town is definitely a no no, these new estates are badly built, and badly designed with terrible roads to match, slums of the future, police have already carried out drug raids, Check it out for yourself with the police, make sure you are early, or the police station might be closed.
Are you looking for work ?, there is none, and the towns main employer is also in trouble, and laying off workers, and if you are unfortunately on the dole, it means traveling to Exeter, 50 mile round trip once a fortnight, at your own expense, to sign on, and we have the highest fuel costs here in Okehampton, so buy your fuel where you see it cheaper, don't get stung, public transport is nothing to write home about, and shops are closing because of high business rates, this was a good town about 30 years ago, why anyone would want to move here now beats me.

I'm quite surprised at some of the negative comments about the town in this thread.

Myself and my girlfriend have been visiting the town for about a year and have really enjoyed our time there. We stayed in both Upcott House and The Fountain Hotel last year and had a great mini holiday in Devon. We chose Okehampton as a place to stay as we have family in Plymouth and Appledore so its central location is ideal.

Maybe it could be argued we had rose tinted glasses on as visitors rather than residents but indeed, most of the people we spoke to in the shops, pubs etc seemed more than friendly and had admiration for their town. I felt the need to register on this site and post this as it seems such a nice place to be compared to what I'm reading here. I'm sure if we lived there I'd be proud to have family and friends come and visit us (more than can be said for some of the places we've lived).

Now I can see why the lack of a second school is a sore point, and a regular train or bus service to Exeter would be ideal for commuters etc (what's the latest on progress with these issues by the way?), but some comments made regarding vandalism, yobbish behaviour, lack of things to do and general impression of the town don't seem to match what we've experienced.

A few decent pubs, lovely park, college, leisure centre and plenty of shops all seem to add up to a nice place to us. We were in the town last year when the battle of the bands was on, we didn't know it was on but found out about it whilst out and about so turned up to check it out and thought it went down really well, it attracted plenty of attention which can only be a good thing for the town.

Angerball, what's your situation now, have you looked any further into moving to Okehampton or anywhere else in Devon?