What is Bray like to live in?

zoobizoo

Slutmonkey57b wrote: »

That doesn't mean my statement was false, simply my experience isn't all encompassing. Which I stated at the beginning.

fair point.

To the OP: As for living in Bray, you'll find that many people in the town love living here and then there are those who live here who do not like it (but don't seem to want to move away).

I am in the former camp. I've lived abroad, I've lived in Dublin and when I moved back here I realised that it was a great place to live. The closeness to Dublin is great. I got from Bray to DCU in 35 mins along the M50 the other day.

The negativity coming from outside of the town is always from Irish people. I have many foreign friends who visit Bray, know nothing about it or its prior bad rap. In fact, any day down the seafront you'll find lots of daytrippers out walking the prom.

We do have issues with certain skanger types but in all honesty, the chances of encountering trouble is low. They do their thing.

The town has picked up in the last few years and while the main street isn't up to much anymore, the place has been refurbished and hopefully there'll be an investment in the Florentine centre soon.

Of course the town has loads of potential. As someone who volunteers my time on various events and committees etc around the town, I find that like anywhere, if you want to help to change it, then get involved.

There is a playground on Sidmonton Road and another down on the beach that will open shortly.

milosh

Slutmonkey57b wrote: »

Everyone seems to have missed the "my experience" part of my post.

I am not a schools inspector. I haven't interviewed every student who came out of Pres in the last 40 years. I haven't seen the inside of every school.

Of the people I've met who went to Pres, 100% of them hated it and said it was a bad school. Is your experience different? Feel free to weigh in. That doesn't mean my statement was false, simply my experience isn't all encompassing. Which I stated at the beginning.

Around 30% of all pupils in Pres are sons of past pupils so that is just wrong. The school has ridiculous waiting lists and parents queue overnight to get their son's on the list from 2nd class. Doesn't sound too bad of a school to me.

You could do worse than read the inspectorate reports on the department of education website about any school in a Bray. The Pres and Gerard's ones from last year make for incredibly positive reading.

Slutmonkey57b

milosh wrote: »

Around 30% of all pupils in Pres are sons of past pupils so that is just wrong. The school has ridiculous waiting lists and parents queue overnight to get their son's on the list from 2nd class. Doesn't sound too bad of a school to me.

You could do worse than read the inspectorate reports on the department of education website about any school in a Bray. The Pres and Gerard's ones from last year make for incredibly positive reading.

I prefaced my comments about Pres with "people I've met have..." and followed it up with a suggestion to read the department's school reports.

But thank you for indicating how thoroughly you read my post.

Calibos

Am I bad person for feeling some schadenfreude?

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057221110&page=4

foxy06

Calibos wrote: »

Am I bad person for feeling some schadenfreude?

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057221110&page=4

I've a new word in my vocabulary now. Will use it at least once this week.

sallymomo

Calibos wrote: »

Am I bad person for feeling some schadenfreude?

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057221110&page=4

Yes, slightly!

I know what you're thinking about it not being on our doorstep which is great but again, other people have to suffer due to the actions of scum in this country.

Good beatings should apply!

Calibos

Dunno of anyone was following the thread in Afterhours but I ended up posting quite a bit in it. I went further than in this thread and actually went googling to find stats to back up my 'Theory', 'Gut Feelings' and 'educated guesses' on the issue.

Found this website which has modules for crime stats by Garda Stations/districts as well as an electoral district module that can show total population of electoral districts and not just eligible voters.

http://www.airo.ie/news/airo-crime-mapping-toolkits-irish-times-crime-statistics-ireland

What I found was that Bray is the 9th most populated urban area in the country after Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Galway, Waterford, Drogheda, Dundalk and Swords. ie. We're surprisingly big geographically as well as relative population wise.

The representative area of South East County Dublin I used in my earlier posts, Dun Laoghaire to Dalkey to Cabinteely to Deansgrange and back to Dun Laoghaire with Sallynoggin in the middle to highlight the actual size of Bray turns out to also be an almost perfect match in terms of Population. ie. 31,000 odd versus Brays 31,500 odd. The Bray Garda Station Total Crime Figure was 2700 for the year 2011. The combined figure of the 3 Stations covering SoECoDu, Dun Laoghaire, Dalkey(Now closed) and Cabinteely(Now On reduced Hours) was 3000.

I then picked a Northside representative area. Sutton to Baldoyle to Donaghmede to Killester to Clontarf to Raheny to Kilbarrack and back to Sutton. ie. Similar geographical area to Bray. Again the population figure for this area turned out to be a near perfect match for Bray too. ie. 31,000. There were 3 Garda Stations covering parts of the general area. Clontarf, Raheny and Howth. Howth Station which is actually outside my selected geographical area probably covers some of the northern part of my area whereas Clontarf probably covers some areas out side my selected geographical area. Thus in the interests of fairness to NoCoDu I eliminated one of the stations when getting a combined Crime figure. The Total Crime figure from Raheny and Clontarf came to 3000. ie. Same as SoECoDu.

Kilkenny BTW with a population 7000 less than Bray has a much higher Crime rate too.

So you have a town that is the 9th Largest urban area in the state with crime rates that seem to be measurably lower than the national average that statistically is a demonstrably safer place to live than most places (Excepting Galway. Very Safe for its size and Population seemingly). Of course we have problem with home grown crime and assaults and visible scumbag population but it seems less so than most places and one only has to look at all the Dublin Addresses for defendants at Bray District Court reported on in the Bray People Newspaper to see that even our lower than average crime figures contain a lot of crime and assault imported into the town with the Dart being one of the main means of entry and escape from the town for the 'Day Trippers' we see reported on in the Bray People.

Yet there is a widespread impression across the country that we are a Homegrown scumbag infested hellhole 24/7/365

So how does a demonstrably safer than most towns end up with an erroneous reputation as being one of the most dangerous? IMHO, by visitors to the town being surrounded by Dublins finest on the seafront for the last 25 years, assuming they were homegrown and causing trouble 24/7/365. Locals with a bad impression of their own town belying the statistics? By being just far enough away from Dublin CC to have our own dedicated Methadone Clinics and Smack Distribution Network keeping all our own smackheads within the town and visible whereas the two areas I mentioned above are close enough to town that their smackheads are off the local streets for most of the day and are attending Clinics in Dublin CC or getting their fixes on O'Connell Street or on the Boardwalk etc. Another reason for the more visible nature of our local 'elements' is that Bray despite its size has a single main Business/Shopping area centred along the mainstreet axis. The SoECoDu and NoECoDu example areas I used have business and shopping areas dispersed amongst the old Village centres of these present day Dublin Suburbs and the troublemakers along with them making them less visible in any one place.

So to recap. I am very confident about Brays future and it eventually reaching its full potential again. When our 'Day Tripper' problem became Howth and Portmarnocks problem after 2006 and the gentrification of the seafront is now starting to reap rewards in terms of a willingness to invest down there over the last few years and presumably going forwards, I feel that if we can get the message out with the statistics to back us up that Bray is actually one of the safest towns in the country by size and population, ie. dispel the myths about crime in Bray in the minds of some of our own people never mind outsiders, that we'll be able to get much more investment in the town and the mainstreet and erase the legacy of lack of investment and the run down look of parts of the town built up over the last quarter century because of its erroneous reputation as a dangerous and by extension investment nogo area.

Looking at the maps of the areas I used and the statistics I also couldn't help but feel that Bray probably doesn't even get its fair share of government investment given its size and population never mind investment by private enterprises.

[Edit] BTW, the latest figures on the stat site were for 2011 which are the figures I used. I did do the comparisons going back 6 or 7 years to 2004 or 2005. As the crime rates rise and fall across the country over that span of time the percentage difference of crime rates in favour of Bray is maintained in the stats. So the 2011 figures I used were not just a once off blip in Brays favour.

sallymomo

Next time someone says to me "sure Bray is a kip" I'll say, nay, You're wrong! And furiously point in the direction of Calibos post!

Some serious research done there Calibos, well done!

Thargor

I wish the roads around Bray were as smooth as other places, they seem to have been cut to sh1t and dug up then badly filled in again over and over and over, there must be 10X the amount of cables running under Brays streets if you compare the amount of badly repaired roadwork to other places, maybe I just notice it more because I cycle everywhere. Main Street has a nice surface these days but they've already started hacking it up 5 minutes after its just been resurfaced. The Vevay road is the worst though, from the top of the hill up to Centra is like someone just poured a load of tar over the dirt track to a farm its so lumpy and broken up.

Speaking of cables I think Main Street will always look a bit depressing because of the crazy amount of dirty wiring stapled to the front of every building, take a look the next time you go through it its insane, there are dirty old wires and Christmas decorations running everywhere and one you see it once you cant help noticing again.

EDIT: Agree with Calibos by the way, been living in Bray 4 years and never had a single bit of bother, even the little skanger kids are a laugh instead of threatening like other places, Bray is less scummy than Cork or Galway.

anto9

Dr. Bre wrote: »

Bray is grand but they always blame the dubs for their sh*t hole problems

Yes Bray has plenty of its own scangers ,who are there all week .I do like Bray ,though the main street is a bit of a **** hole .

Sugarlumps

anto9 wrote: »

Yes Bray has plenty of its own scangers ,who are there all week .I do like Bray ,though the main street is a bit of a **** hole .

Agreed, it's rank looking. Dished all that money rigging the footpaths and it looks worse than ever. Why not fix the focking roads with mega pot holes than need relaying.

cllrmcmanus

Sugarlumps wrote: »

Dished all that money rigging the footpaths and it looks worse than ever.

I don't think any objective observer could agree with this statement.

zoobizoo

Sugarlumps wrote: »

Agreed, it's rank looking. Dished all that money rigging the footpaths and it looks worse than ever. Why not fix the focking roads with mega pot holes than need relaying.

I think that the new paths look great.

cllrmcmanus

zoobizoo wrote: »

I think that the new paths look great.

I agree, and the new street lamps as well.

Incredibly bored of the whingers at this stage. I can't even look at the comments on the "Bray Did You Know" FB page anymore.

zoobizoo

cllrmcmanus wrote: »

I agree, and the new street lamps as well.

Incredibly bored of the whingers at this stage. I can't even look at the comments on the "Bray Did You Know" FB page anymore.

ditto. Such a great page spoiled a bit by negativity generally from people who do sweet F.A. for the town.

I guess some people thrive on negativity. Much easier than actually getting off their arses and doing something.

evase

Hi,
I am sorry if I hijack the tread, that is not my purpose, but I am looking for fresh information about certain areas of Bray. And since this is a tread about Bray I thought I might ask here.
We are thinking of buying a house that is situated on the outskirts of Old Court and Deer park near Boghall rd. I have found some old information here on Boards.ie that those are areas you might do best to avoid. Is that still the case?

foxy06

I think that the boghall road area is fine. Some nice estates there and if I'm right in thinking you are looking at One of the bungalows there its not a bad spot. My concern if it was me personally would be the closeness to the road.

foxy06

I think that the boghall road area is fine. Some nice estates there and if I'm right in thinking you are looking at One of the bungalows there its not a bad spot. My concern if it was me personally would be the closeness to the road.

evase

It is not on Boghall rd but on a cross-street to Bodhall rd, so I am not that concerned with the noise from the Boghall rd, just the closeness (next street over) to Old court / Dear Park areas. If they still may be considered as "trouble" areas we would rather spend our money on a house elsewhere in Bray, I don't like the idea of being afraid of going home after dark.

foxy06

OK well the straightforward answer is that Deer Park and oldcourt are council estates. They have good and bad residents the same as any area. Personally I wouldn't walk anywhere at all after dark but you may feel different (I'm scared of my own shadow). The fact that you are questioning the area would suggest to me that you may not be comfortable there no matter what anyone says. If you are looking for a nice area I would suggest the estates between the killarney and Herbert roads. If I was moving that would be my ideal location.

evase

Ok. Thank you for your advise.
We are new to the Dublin area (including Bray) so we do not really know anything about any area here, but since my physiotherapist said to be cautious to what area of Bray we would be moving I started to look into it. The only things about different areas of Bray that I could find was just old court and deer park and that was old information.
I am not delighted at going home after dark either but during the winter months it is kind of hard to avoid...

d-don

Ffs... I am originally from oldcourt and grew up living around deer park . Every area of any society has it's own people . Lived in the worst areas of limerick and that it mad compared to what you are told . Ou there own kind generally create **** with there own . Never have I had any problems in the area . My recommendation is to visit the area at different times and the weekend and you will see ....

Dr Strange

I think there are one or two houses coming up within the next couple of months or so on the Putland Villas/Vevay Road. Nice quiet spots there apart from the road as far as I know.