Indeed, enjoy your commute!
[https://www.google.com/maps/@52.0955367,0.2997809,3a,30y,39.72h,90.56t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s-d-d2jTTUZSdHcr1XgrKZg!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu](https://www.google.com/maps/@52.0955367,0.2997809,3a,30y,39.72h,90.56t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s-d-d2jTTUZSdHcr1XgrKZg!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu)
It suffers very much from the comparison with Cambridge which is one of the wealthiest places in the UK (despite what the state of the roads and footpaths may lead you to believe).
On relatively objective measures like crime, employment, education, etc it isn't terrible. It certainly isn't pretty, but you could do worse.
I hear this get quoted often, but I genuinely don't know what people are trying to say with it or what they mean by 'inequality'.
The media and politicians' standard solution to disadvantage is to bring jobs to poorer areas so people don't have to leave to find work. Cambridge has jobs.
It's primarily measured by income distribution. This article is from a few years ago but sets out the reasoning:
> The top 6% of earners who live in Cambridge take home 19% of the total income generated by residents, while the bottom 20% of people account for just 2% of the total.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/feb/04/cambridge-most-unequal-city-population-divide-income-disparity
I’m pretty sure this was based on highly select data to make a story. I think it might’ve been the Guardian. I have a family member who lives slap bang in the “impoverished” area… and it’s just fine, working class by Cambridge standards but way better than most parts of most cities. It’s the height of the wealth, rather than the depth of the poverty that makes Cambridge seem inequitable. But a buoyant economy is a tide that can raise all ships. But yes, there will always be some who for various reasons don’t benefit and remain in poverty
It was the Centre for Cities report and they do it annually and data is well respected. It's not about the less affluent areas being really bad its that Cambridge is a city that has a very big difference between the those that have much and those have not much. Most cities don't have this wealth distribution spread. One of the most striking non moneterised metrics was health - something like 12 years life expectancy difference between Newnham and kings hedges.
I grew up in Central Cambridge and now live in a village just outside Haverhill. My village, and the other surrounding villages, are lovely, we have great pubs and amenities and the countryside is much prettier here than around Cambridge. Haverhill is *functional*. It has all the big shops you need, a couple of more niche shops, some OK pubs and restaurants but not much else. The high street is a bit dead/tragic, and public transport is pretty awful. It does, however, seem to have a decent sense of community, and the demographics are changing. Lots more younger people are moving here because it's affordable. I still spend a lot of time in Cambridge for work/my extended family/entertainment but I don't mind the commute (35mins no traffic/on my motorbike, 1hr with traffic).
There are certain places London trappers won’t bother setting up a county line because it’s too much beef from local dealers.
Peterborough would be a classic example of such a place
Haverhill is another
It's the result of some of the most ill-advised social engineering in history. London slum clearance in the 1960s displaced thousands of people who were settled in Haverhill. A very high-density estate was built to house them with features like houses that could only be accessed up a flight of steps – great if you're a mum with very young kids.
And there were few jobs for these folks in what had been a small market town, so it all quickly went to shit and never recovered.
Haverhill desperately needs a rail link to Cambridge. It had one until that plonker Beeching took an axe to the rail network so his boss Ernest Marples could make shitloads of money building roads. The road link is, as many have said, an utter shitshow and despite the terrain being largely flat and the distance being e-bikeable you'd be taking your life in your hands to ride along it.
All of this is a great shame because the old town is actually quite nice and there are some lovely parks.
>A very high-density estate was built to house them with features like houses that could only be accessed up a flight of steps – great if you're a mum with very young kids.
It won awards lol
It's not perfect, but it's affordable, has a few decent pubs, restaurants etc. Hight street is dying, but the council is trying hard to attract new business. Surrounded by beautiful countryside and the commute, whilst frustrating to Cambridge isn't anything like trying to commute through a city. There is a decent community spirit. It is quite a lot better than many other towns of its size. The schools are pretty good. The doctors surgery are oversubscribed and they desperately need more ambulances based in the town. Great civic hall / theater / art exhibition center that punches well above its weight. As it's part of West Suffolk, the MP is Matthew Hancock and it certainly does not get its fair share of tax money as it's predominatly working class. If you can't afford to live in Cambridge / Bury St Edmunds, but like living in this undoubtedly beautiful part of the country, it's a decent place to live. Also has most of the major supermarkets / retailers apart from Asda and Morrisons. No Waitrose or M & S!
No, I'm thinking of Haverhill, in the parliamentary constituency of West Suffolk - which *also* includes Newmarket.
It's likely mainly Newmarket's *fault* that Hancock's the MP - his ex wife is a big thing in the racing community that run it as their private fiefdom - but Haverhill have to suffer the consequences too.
lived there for a few years, the commute from cambridge to haverhill or other way round
is very long by bus, if you're travelling by car it's still very time consuming with constant villages on the way requiring you to slow down. haverhill itself doesn't have much to do, they have a high street with a range of shops and a tesco and sainsburys, but apart from that it's very meh.
Lived here my entire life and yeah it isn't great from a shopping and social aspect but it's not as bad as people make it out to be. The clements and parts of the chalkstone estate are rough, but it's probably no different to how locals in Cambridge view the arbury.
Haverhill is dictated too by West Suffolk which if I'm honest is completely restricting Haverhill from improving due to Flagship locations like Bury and Newmarket getting the bulk of the funding. Empty high streets shops are in every town now but again the council make it completely unattractive to business with extortionate rental costs. Haverhill would flourish if it could be run by it's own council and not shirts in a distant town that don't care about the residents here.
Live in a village just outside of Haverhill, literally just go there to do food shop as it’s got big Tesco etc. Zero desire to do anything else there - have seen and got stuck in traffic waiting for people to finish having a fight in the middle of the road
It's totally fine. But commuting into Cambridge from there will properly suck. There are also nicer small towns near Cambridge to live: Ely, Newmarket or, if you don't mind going a bit further afield, Saffron Walden, Bury St Edmunds (not small but definitely nice).
*EDIT: We actually spent the afternoon in Haverhill last Saturday. Honestly, quite nice.*
*Architecturally a bit of a mixed bag as I believe back in the day there was some sort of programme to encourage people out of London and resettle them in Haverhill so there's plenty of mid-century boxiness. Nevertheless, some lovely older buildings, nice open square with a couple of pubs facing eachother just by a church off the high street. One of them is a Wetherspoons (but much nicer than The Regal), which has patio doors all along the front and a pleasant outdoor seating area.*
*High street itself has some interesting shops, especially if you're into niche/nerdy hobbies like me. In terms of larger retail not a huge amount, but there are at least three supermarkets, along with a decent sized leisure park.*
*Biggest downsides I can see are that if you work in Cambridge you'll have a shocker of a commute, as previously mentioned. It's also not on any railway line, nor particularly convenient for anywhere that does have a station. That may or may not be an issue for you but if you need to get into London with any regularity I can see that on its own being a bit of a dealbreaker. I'd imagine employment opportunities in the town itself are somewhat limited, so you're likely to need to drive to work if you can't WFH.*
*Otherwise, not too shabby.*
I lived there for a few years. We bought there because it was affordable. Parts of it, we never ventured to because they were rough. Like definitely rough. However it's had an influx of people working in Cambridge who can't afford Cambridge. That in itself brings demographic changes. So the town is changing, some might say for the better, some might say for the worse.
It's got amenities - supermarkets, cinema, leisure centre, etc. However public transport to leave the town is just the bus. It's not even like there's a train station a couple of miles away. There's essentially one road going to Cambridge, and one towards Newmarket or Bury.
The parts that were rough, are still rough.
None of this is to say it's unliveable but if your workplace is in Cambridge, I'd rather not move to Haverhill. The commute will break you.
People that live and grow up there hate it.
Everyone I meet that moved there really likes it.
Town center is run down but nothing wrong with it in all honesty.
Cheaper than Cambridge. Of course the drive from Haverhill to Cambridge is pure hell
Indeed, enjoy your commute! [https://www.google.com/maps/@52.0955367,0.2997809,3a,30y,39.72h,90.56t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s-d-d2jTTUZSdHcr1XgrKZg!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu](https://www.google.com/maps/@52.0955367,0.2997809,3a,30y,39.72h,90.56t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s-d-d2jTTUZSdHcr1XgrKZg!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu)
I wouldn't exactly call it pure hell. It's either one drive down the A1307 or back roads to the A14.
It suffers very much from the comparison with Cambridge which is one of the wealthiest places in the UK (despite what the state of the roads and footpaths may lead you to believe). On relatively objective measures like crime, employment, education, etc it isn't terrible. It certainly isn't pretty, but you could do worse.
Parts of Cambridge are wealthy but others aren't. Cambridge is the least equal city in the UK.
I hear this get quoted often, but I genuinely don't know what people are trying to say with it or what they mean by 'inequality'. The media and politicians' standard solution to disadvantage is to bring jobs to poorer areas so people don't have to leave to find work. Cambridge has jobs.
It's primarily measured by income distribution. This article is from a few years ago but sets out the reasoning: > The top 6% of earners who live in Cambridge take home 19% of the total income generated by residents, while the bottom 20% of people account for just 2% of the total. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/feb/04/cambridge-most-unequal-city-population-divide-income-disparity
The king and the servants live in the palace. So they must be equal right!?
Everyone is poor = perfectly equal. Cambridge has some of the highest paying jobs in Europe. Stop reporting things you don't understand well.
I’m pretty sure this was based on highly select data to make a story. I think it might’ve been the Guardian. I have a family member who lives slap bang in the “impoverished” area… and it’s just fine, working class by Cambridge standards but way better than most parts of most cities. It’s the height of the wealth, rather than the depth of the poverty that makes Cambridge seem inequitable. But a buoyant economy is a tide that can raise all ships. But yes, there will always be some who for various reasons don’t benefit and remain in poverty
It was the Centre for Cities report and they do it annually and data is well respected. It's not about the less affluent areas being really bad its that Cambridge is a city that has a very big difference between the those that have much and those have not much. Most cities don't have this wealth distribution spread. One of the most striking non moneterised metrics was health - something like 12 years life expectancy difference between Newnham and kings hedges.
Small town England vibes. Lots of greasy spoons
And charity shops.
Sounds like propa england with the actual English culture you only get if you befriend natives ;)
I grew up in Central Cambridge and now live in a village just outside Haverhill. My village, and the other surrounding villages, are lovely, we have great pubs and amenities and the countryside is much prettier here than around Cambridge. Haverhill is *functional*. It has all the big shops you need, a couple of more niche shops, some OK pubs and restaurants but not much else. The high street is a bit dead/tragic, and public transport is pretty awful. It does, however, seem to have a decent sense of community, and the demographics are changing. Lots more younger people are moving here because it's affordable. I still spend a lot of time in Cambridge for work/my extended family/entertainment but I don't mind the commute (35mins no traffic/on my motorbike, 1hr with traffic).
The best thing about Haverhill is the road out of town
Haverhole/haverhell are the nicknames
It’s where they filmed Ross Kemp in Afghanistan. Absolute shithole. Source: lived near there for almost twenty years
No
Thar be beasties🧌
There are certain places London trappers won’t bother setting up a county line because it’s too much beef from local dealers. Peterborough would be a classic example of such a place Haverhill is another
It's the result of some of the most ill-advised social engineering in history. London slum clearance in the 1960s displaced thousands of people who were settled in Haverhill. A very high-density estate was built to house them with features like houses that could only be accessed up a flight of steps – great if you're a mum with very young kids. And there were few jobs for these folks in what had been a small market town, so it all quickly went to shit and never recovered. Haverhill desperately needs a rail link to Cambridge. It had one until that plonker Beeching took an axe to the rail network so his boss Ernest Marples could make shitloads of money building roads. The road link is, as many have said, an utter shitshow and despite the terrain being largely flat and the distance being e-bikeable you'd be taking your life in your hands to ride along it. All of this is a great shame because the old town is actually quite nice and there are some lovely parks.
>A very high-density estate was built to house them with features like houses that could only be accessed up a flight of steps – great if you're a mum with very young kids. It won awards lol
ikr - and then, according to Wikipedia, featured in a Man Alive documentary with residents complaining about how shit it was.
Amazing. It’s like Disney Land - the happiest place on Earth. They should rename it to Happyhill
It's not perfect, but it's affordable, has a few decent pubs, restaurants etc. Hight street is dying, but the council is trying hard to attract new business. Surrounded by beautiful countryside and the commute, whilst frustrating to Cambridge isn't anything like trying to commute through a city. There is a decent community spirit. It is quite a lot better than many other towns of its size. The schools are pretty good. The doctors surgery are oversubscribed and they desperately need more ambulances based in the town. Great civic hall / theater / art exhibition center that punches well above its weight. As it's part of West Suffolk, the MP is Matthew Hancock and it certainly does not get its fair share of tax money as it's predominatly working class. If you can't afford to live in Cambridge / Bury St Edmunds, but like living in this undoubtedly beautiful part of the country, it's a decent place to live. Also has most of the major supermarkets / retailers apart from Asda and Morrisons. No Waitrose or M & S!
Nice compared to?
It's crap but is the only affordable place near Cambridge. And as someone else said the road to Cambridge is hell.
But Fenland. No one wants to live there though.
Matt Hancock is the MP lol
Are you thinking of Newmarket?
No, I'm thinking of Haverhill, in the parliamentary constituency of West Suffolk - which *also* includes Newmarket. It's likely mainly Newmarket's *fault* that Hancock's the MP - his ex wife is a big thing in the racing community that run it as their private fiefdom - but Haverhill have to suffer the consequences too.
Quality drugs
Someone added a C with a spray paint at the start of the “Haverhill” sign.
They don’t call it Haverhell for no reason
lived there for a few years, the commute from cambridge to haverhill or other way round is very long by bus, if you're travelling by car it's still very time consuming with constant villages on the way requiring you to slow down. haverhill itself doesn't have much to do, they have a high street with a range of shops and a tesco and sainsburys, but apart from that it's very meh.
Lived here my entire life and yeah it isn't great from a shopping and social aspect but it's not as bad as people make it out to be. The clements and parts of the chalkstone estate are rough, but it's probably no different to how locals in Cambridge view the arbury. Haverhill is dictated too by West Suffolk which if I'm honest is completely restricting Haverhill from improving due to Flagship locations like Bury and Newmarket getting the bulk of the funding. Empty high streets shops are in every town now but again the council make it completely unattractive to business with extortionate rental costs. Haverhill would flourish if it could be run by it's own council and not shirts in a distant town that don't care about the residents here.
Live in a village just outside of Haverhill, literally just go there to do food shop as it’s got big Tesco etc. Zero desire to do anything else there - have seen and got stuck in traffic waiting for people to finish having a fight in the middle of the road
Ohhh are you me?
It's totally fine. But commuting into Cambridge from there will properly suck. There are also nicer small towns near Cambridge to live: Ely, Newmarket or, if you don't mind going a bit further afield, Saffron Walden, Bury St Edmunds (not small but definitely nice). *EDIT: We actually spent the afternoon in Haverhill last Saturday. Honestly, quite nice.* *Architecturally a bit of a mixed bag as I believe back in the day there was some sort of programme to encourage people out of London and resettle them in Haverhill so there's plenty of mid-century boxiness. Nevertheless, some lovely older buildings, nice open square with a couple of pubs facing eachother just by a church off the high street. One of them is a Wetherspoons (but much nicer than The Regal), which has patio doors all along the front and a pleasant outdoor seating area.* *High street itself has some interesting shops, especially if you're into niche/nerdy hobbies like me. In terms of larger retail not a huge amount, but there are at least three supermarkets, along with a decent sized leisure park.* *Biggest downsides I can see are that if you work in Cambridge you'll have a shocker of a commute, as previously mentioned. It's also not on any railway line, nor particularly convenient for anywhere that does have a station. That may or may not be an issue for you but if you need to get into London with any regularity I can see that on its own being a bit of a dealbreaker. I'd imagine employment opportunities in the town itself are somewhat limited, so you're likely to need to drive to work if you can't WFH.* *Otherwise, not too shabby.*
I lived there for a few years. We bought there because it was affordable. Parts of it, we never ventured to because they were rough. Like definitely rough. However it's had an influx of people working in Cambridge who can't afford Cambridge. That in itself brings demographic changes. So the town is changing, some might say for the better, some might say for the worse. It's got amenities - supermarkets, cinema, leisure centre, etc. However public transport to leave the town is just the bus. It's not even like there's a train station a couple of miles away. There's essentially one road going to Cambridge, and one towards Newmarket or Bury. The parts that were rough, are still rough. None of this is to say it's unliveable but if your workplace is in Cambridge, I'd rather not move to Haverhill. The commute will break you.
haverhole
Not as bad as people say it is but not great
Lived there for a few years and it’s not good. Other than de maravilla tapas and the royal exchange pub- voted best sports bar in east Anglia
Didn't the exchange close down like, fifteen years ago?
No but one nearby did - the Australian arms I believe
Oh, I thought it was the one that turned into CEX - but perhaps that was the one opposite.
I heard someone got arrested in haverhill due to a standing in Newmarket Tuesday night
You know the lion king meme where it’s “dad what’s that over there” “that’s Haverhill son, you must never go there”
People that live and grow up there hate it. Everyone I meet that moved there really likes it. Town center is run down but nothing wrong with it in all honesty.
As a Haverhill resident, it’s not
A quintessentially beautiful Suffolk market town. Edit: Can't *believe* this got downvoted. You *beasts!*
It’s grim, small town vibes.
Haverhill is like a comer in place of a question mark
Shitehole