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‘Hove retains un-spruced-up fringes.’
‘Hove retains un-spruced-up fringes.’ Photograph: Alamy
‘Hove retains un-spruced-up fringes.’ Photograph: Alamy

Let’s move to Hove, East Sussex: ‘It attracts more young people than anywhere in the country’

This article is more than 6 years old

If you’d like to live beside the seaside, Hove is more laid-back – and more affordable – than neighbouring Brighton

What’s going for it? Only the canny-eyed can tell the precise point, somewhere around Audrey’s chocolate boutique (straight outta Twin Peaks/the age of Glenn Miller), when supposedly rakish Brighton, inventor of the dirty weekend, segues into supposedly suburban Hove, land of Hyacinth Buckets. Those stereotypes of this twin city hold less and less true today. Stratospheric property prices in Brighton risk turning the place into Notting Hill-on-Sea, with all the dirtiness of an antiseptic wipe. Hove, meanwhile, though hardly cheap, retains un-spruced-up fringes, where those less interested in property investment portfolios but still hankering after sea air, like-minded people and kiss-me-quick can just about survive. No wonder, then, that it’s Hove, not Brighton, these days that’s attracting more young people than any other spot in the country. For now.

The case against It lacks the intensity and density of Brighton. Suburban in places.

Well connected? Trains: six or so an hour to Worthing (15-29 mins) and on to Southampton, Portsmouth and Bristol; half-hourly to Gatwick (30 mins) and London Victoria (70 mins). Driving: 10-15 mins to the A27 and the A23, though they can get clogged on high days and holidays.

Schools Primaries: Cottesmore St Mary Catholic, St Andrew’s CE, Hove Junior, Brunswick, Bilingual, Aldrington CE, West Blatchington and Goldstone are all “good”, Ofsted says, with Hangleton “outstanding”. Secondaries: Blatchington Mill and Hove Park are “good”.

Hang out at… Spoilt for choice, with the added bonus that you won’t need to elbow out tourists at plum spots such as the Foragers or the Ginger Pig.

Where to buy Avenues of Regency town houses and flats both sides of the main drag, Church Road, including delicious bow-fronted homes on Lansdowne Place along to Western Lawns on the front; another sought-after area is Poets Corner. The terraces then turn Victorian, and eventually Edwardian, inland off Dyke Road Avenue to Shirley Drive and Goldstone Crescent, and the avenues off Old Shoreham Road. More affordable towards Portslade. Large detacheds and town houses, £800,000-£2.7m. Smaller town houses, £400,000-£800,000. Semis, £350,000-£1.5m. Terraces, £300,000-£600,000. Flats, from £175,000 for a studio to £1.2m. Rentals: one-bed flat, £800-£1,300pcm; three-bed house, £1,300-£2,300pcm.

Bargain of the week A four-bed Victorian terrace in Aldrington, £450,000, with kingandchasemore.co.uk.

From the streets

Andrew Devon “Richardson Road, an enclave in ‘WeHo’ (west Hove; nobody calls it that except me and my wife, but I’m sure it will catch on): Drury, Curiosity cafe and Gratitude Tree Grocers.”

Rose JenkinsHove Park cafe is the perfect spot for lunch, coffee and cake after an open-air workout at Riptide gym next door.”

Live in Hove? Join the debate below.

Do you live in Preston, Lancashire? Do you have a favourite haunt or a pet hate? If so, email lets.move@theguardian.com by Tuesday 11 July.

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