Dagenham?

I grew up in Dagenham, moved there when I was 5, moved away when I was 20, but my family still live there.It is a shithole. Particularly when I was growing up, it was violent and racist. That element seems to be dying away now, though it's still a bland urban shithole.

What I've found with Dagenham is that your immediate neighbours make the biggest difference. My folks currently live next to an Indian family and have a currently good experience. But their previous next door neighbours were between 5 and 25 eastern Europeans who were well known for credit card fraud and stealing - my parents were too scared to go on holiday and I think they were right to be scared. Prior to that their next door neighbours were a young couple who beat their kids and where the husband beat his wife. Prior to that, when I lived there, it was a woman who, a few years after breaking up with her husband and moving out, killed her small child.

Dagenham isn't a bad place per se but it's where the dregs go; people who have no other options. That can lead to camaraderie - it did with my friends. But it can also lead to some truly horrible experiences.

Honestly if I were you I'd be looking at Chingford. Not much more expensive and much nicer and more central.