Please help!!!

Hi,

how is it in Chestnut and/or Hertford socially-wise?

We are an expatriate couple from Europe with 3 kids (11, 7 and 5), we've been living in the middle of Essex for the last four years and we've found it very difficult here to make friends with the locals or have any kind of social life. People here tend to stick to their group and seem not interested at all in meeting or knowing foreigners. Even our kids find it difficult to have any real friends, they rarely if ever get invited to birthday parties for instance, even though we've had kids from their classes for a sleepover several times. The friends they are able to make and who seem like real friends for a while seem to shun them after a while for no discernible reason, which we find utterly puzzling coming from kids less than 12. Other foreigners in our area have reported similar experiences, like long-planned invitations to a party being cancelled the day before without as much as a word of explanation, kids being left to play completely on their own for months on end at school, etc.

Because of this situation we're now planning to move to a different area. We need to be at commuting distance from London, ideally Liverpool St station, for work, and obviously we're looking for a nice, safe place for the kids with good schools and amenities. Would Cheshunt be a nice place for foreigners to live in your opinion, i.e., from a social live / friendship / community feel perspective, would the kids feel at ease there, be able to have friends, etc?

All advice and suggestions are welcome.

Thanks