A student's guide to Lancaster's neighbourhoods

Lancaster is small enough to walk across in half an hour, which makes it tempting to assume that where you live does not matter much. It does. The difference between a ten minute walk into town and a twenty minute bus each way is about two hours a week, and over a year that changes how much of the city you actually see.

Here is a quick tour of the parts of Lancaster students tend to live in, what each one is like, and the sort of person it suits.

Bowerham

Bowerham is the classic Lancaster student district. Red brick terraces on the hill south east of town, and the University of Cumbria campus right in the middle of it. If you are at Cumbria, this is the obvious choice. If you are at Lancaster University, it is a short bus ride and a properly settled neighbourhood, which is why a lot of second years end up here.

The houses are mostly three to five bedrooms with a yard, landlords are used to student tenancies, and there are shops and takeaways on Bowerham Road. The catch is the hill.

Scotforth

Scotforth sits on the A6 between town and Lancaster University, which puts it on the best bus route in the city. If your priority is getting to campus quickly without living on it, this is hard to beat.

Houses directly on the main road get traffic noise, so ask which way the bedrooms face. The streets set back are much quieter, and parking is easier than nearer the centre.

Hala and Greaves

Hala and Greaves are the quieter options south of the city. Newer housing in Hala, a mix of terraces and interwar semis in Greaves, and a calmer feel than the busiest student streets in both.

They suit final years, postgraduates and anyone who has done a year somewhere loud and wants a change. Both are close to the A6 buses. Neither is somewhere you walk home from town.

Moorlands and Primrose

Moorlands is on the slope between town and Williamson Park, which means a fifteen minute walk into the centre and one of the nicest parks in the north west on your doorstep. Primrose is smaller and sits between town and the Cumbria campus, so both are walkable from the same house.

Both are Victorian terraces, both are sociable, and both have tight parking. Primrose is small enough that houses go early.

The city centre, and Castle and Fenton Street

Living in the city centre or around Castle and Fenton Street means the shops, the pubs and the railway station are all on foot. No bus fare for a night out, and no taxi home.

The housing leans more towards flats than big shared terraces, which suits smaller groups and postgraduates. The trade offs are noise, parking and the longest bus commute to Lancaster University of any of these areas.

Galgate and Bailrigg

Galgate is a village about a mile south of Lancaster University, and Bailrigg is the campus itself. Between them they are the closest you can live to lectures.

Galgate has pubs, a shop and the canal running through it, and cycling to campus is genuinely practical. The cost is being four miles from Lancaster itself, so nights out in town mean a bus or a taxi both ways.

Rent, travel and the trade off between them

Areas near campus and areas near town both carry a premium, for different reasons, and the cheapest rents in Lancaster tend to be in the places that are convenient for neither. That is worth knowing before you assume the lowest weekly figure is the best value.

The sum that actually matters is rent plus travel. If a house saves you ten pounds a week but commits you to a bus twice a day, you have not saved ten pounds. Work out what getting about would really cost from each house you are considering, including the nights when you would end up in a taxi because the last bus has gone.

Group size is the other thing that quietly decides this for you. Larger shares of five and six are easiest to find in Bowerham and Moorlands, where the Victorian terraces are big. Threes, twos and single flats have far more choice centrally. Plenty of groups pick an area and then discover the houses there do not come in their size.

So how do you choose?

Three questions usually settle it.

• Which campus are you at? University of Cumbria students should look hard at Bowerham and Primrose. Lancaster University students have more options, but Scotforth and Galgate give the shortest commutes.
• Do you want to walk home from town, or walk to lectures? Almost no area in Lancaster gives you both, and pretending otherwise is how groups end up unhappy.
• How big is your group? Larger shares are easiest to find in Bowerham and Moorlands. Threes, twos and singles have more choice centrally.

There is more detail on each of these, including travel times to both universities and what is nearby, on the student areas pages. And if you already know roughly what you want, tell us and we will come to you first when something matches.