Help escaping London - but need to commute?

Jimbo1976

You could get a lovely house in Guildford for that. There are great schools. Royal Grammar School for boys and Guildford High School for girls are 2 of the best private schools in the country.

Trains to Waterloo about 35 mins depending on what time the train is. It is a bun fight for seats though. even at 6:30am....

princeofpounds

Hi Mcodox, I know the area very well. Can you please specify what the purpose of this move really is? You talk about moving out of South West London, but there are big differences between being in busy Clapham SW London to slightly quieter Barnes or Wimbledon Village, to semi-rural like Cobham, to genuine countryside.

Are you trying simply to get more for your money? Or is the imperative to get out of somewhere urban? And does leafy suburbia count as an escape or not?

Also, is SW a direction you particularly care about? It's (IMHO) the nicest direction out of London, but it's not perfectly suited to where you both work although it could be worse. Mind you, I can kind of understand it becaust the Southall/Uxbridge corridor which is more directly lining up your places of work isn't great.

Having said that, it starts to get very nice once you get to windsor and there are trains to paddington there taking anything from 30mins to 1hr, although I don't know what they are like. Straight down the M4 to Brentford.

Broadly speaking, with that budget and wanting to get into waterloo in 40 mins, you have a load of choice in a SW direction. But Brentford is a little bit tricky to get into because of having to travel through places like Kingston, Barnes or whatever.

ukcarper

princeofpounds wrote: »

Hi Mcodox, I know the area very well. Can you please specify what the purpose of this move really is? You talk about moving out of South West London, but there are big differences between being in busy Clapham SW London to slightly quieter Barnes or Wimbledon Village, to semi-rural like Cobham, to genuine countryside.

Are you trying simply to get more for your money? Or is the imperative to get out of somewhere urban? And does leafy suburbia count as an escape or not?

Also, is SW a direction you particularly care about? It's (IMHO) the nicest direction out of London, but it's not perfectly suited to where you both work although it could be worse. Mind you, I can kind of understand it becaust the Southall/Uxbridge corridor which is more directly lining up your places of work isn't great.

Having said that, it starts to get very nice once you get to windsor and there are trains to paddington there taking anything from 30mins to 1hr, although I don't know what they are like. Straight down the M4 to Brentford.

Broadly speaking, with that budget and wanting to get into waterloo in 40 mins, you have a load of choice in a SW direction. But Brentford is a little bit tricky to get into because of having to travel through places like Kingston, Barnes or whatever.

I think this is a very good reply and the drive would be the main problem from Guildford and it wouldn’t be to great from the Windsor area. As I said I worked in the Hounslow Isleworth area and drove in from the Guildford area and if you have to do it between 7am and 9am you would be very lucky to do it in 45mins.

　

Notmyrealname

Would it be a better idea to move with the intention of finding a job locally? Yes there'll be a wage drop most likely but you can offset the cost of commuting so you'd probably not be any worse off.

Up here in East Yorks the wages are considerably lower than London but after housing costs are deducted and because there's little commuting, you usually have more money to live on than someone in London doing a similar job.

Mcodox

princeofpounds wrote: »

Hi Mcodox, I know the area very well. Can you please specify what the purpose of this move really is? You talk about moving out of South West London, but there are big differences between being in busy Clapham SW London to slightly quieter Barnes or Wimbledon Village, to semi-rural like Cobham, to genuine countryside.

Are you trying simply to get more for your money? Or is the imperative to get out of somewhere urban? And does leafy suburbia count as an escape or not?

Also, is SW a direction you particularly care about? It's (IMHO) the nicest direction out of London, but it's not perfectly suited to where you both work although it could be worse. Mind you, I can kind of understand it becaust the Southall/Uxbridge corridor which is more directly lining up your places of work isn't great.

Having said that, it starts to get very nice once you get to windsor and there are trains to paddington there taking anything from 30mins to 1hr, although I don't know what they are like. Straight down the M4 to Brentford.

Broadly speaking, with that budget and wanting to get into waterloo in 40 mins, you have a load of choice in a SW direction. But Brentford is a little bit tricky to get into because of having to travel through places like Kingston, Barnes or whatever.

We are in the Sheen area, so this is a nice area - we want more inside space, more outside space and no planes. So leafy suburbs are fine too, as is village, but not open countryside miles from services/shops/people. We dont want to be taxi drivers for kids.

You hit the nail on the head in that out directly West from Brentford the areas are not that great (Uxbridge etc) until you hit Windsor and beyond. The alternative is more SW to Walton, Weybridge, West Byfleet, towards Guildford. I guess its too much choice - narrowing it down is the difficulty...

We cant move jobs - they are too specialist and not the right solution for us.

All ideas appreciated - its a tricky one...

chewmylegoff

Mcodox wrote: »

We are in the Sheen area, so this is a nice area - we want more inside space, more outside space and no planes. So leafy suburbs are fine too, as is village, but not open countryside miles from services/shops/people. We dont want to be taxi drivers for kids.

You hit the nail on the head in that out directly West from Brentford the areas are not that great (Uxbridge etc) until you hit Windsor and beyond. The alternative is more SW to Walton, Weybridge, West Byfleet, towards Guildford. I guess its too much choice - narrowing it down is the difficulty...

We cant move jobs - they are too specialist and not the right solution for us.

All ideas appreciated - its a tricky one...

that's a bit of a tricky one really, if you want to stay in the SW "corridor" then you're going to be under the flight path in most cases, and even if you're not, if they stick a third runway in at heathrow then i guess there is a possibility/probability that would change.

e.g. i know that there is much less aircraft noise in teddington / hampton than you will get in sheen (north sheen is my closest station, so i feel your pain, although we have triple glazing in the bedroom and cannot hear the planes in there), but recently they have started diverting some take-off traffic over those areas.

if you want to avoid planes with any certainty, and want to be 35/40 mins from kings cross, and within an acceptable commute of brentford by car, then i think you need to go north of brentford. i don't know anything about north...

princeofpounds

OK you are in Sheen. That helps.

If the airport noise bothers you in Sheen then you can count out anywhere more or less in a direct line West as that just takes you closet to Heathrow. Richmond/Twickenham/Feltham/Houslow and probably even Datchet and Windsor are likely counted out then (Although I would check out Windsor if I were you, it's worth a day trip anyway and you might like what you see).

Places like Oxshott, Cobham/Stoke d'Abernon, Esher and Claygate would be great for Waterloo and probably will give you what you want. Esher and Cobham are more like small towns, The others are more village-like but all have some basic shops.

However, they are not necessarily ideal for Brentford. That's because you need to get through both Kingston or Hampton Court and Richmond or Twickenham.

But out of them all I think Esher could be the best. It got more going on, you should get enough for your money, trains to waterloo are 30 mins (although the station is a few minutes out of town), and it's nearer Brentford that the others.

The other areas I think you should consider are the riverside ones just a bit north of that corridor. Walton/Weybridge are nice enough, but a bit further along the rail line from Esher and no closer to Brentford. But you might find the A316 is a better route up that way, I'm not sure.

And, if you want to ease the Brentford drive a little and can stand a slightly slower train, I'd think very carefully about the locations adjacent to Hampton Court. Lots of green space, river, and you can bypass Kingston (thought traffic will be heavy through the whole area).

If I were you, I'd take a day each to do the Claygate/Esher/Oxshott/Cobham corridor and the Hampton-through-Weybridge crecent.

ukcarper

Another good post I agree that Esher would offer the quickest drive although Hampton would be a much quicker drive as it would avoid crossing the River.


The A316 gets pretty bad from the Teddington turn off and generally crawls up to where you would turn off for Isleworth. From Weybridge you could use the M25 to M3 (which is also busy but a short stretch) The M3 is normally clear until the first roundabout on the A316. It’s hard to say how long it would take in rush hour but might be possible in 40mins. There are other routes namely over walton bridge and pick up A316 at Sunbury .

junglejim2

Surbiton would be my recomendation.
Fast trains to London.
Reasonable drive to Brentford via Richmond Park and Kew Bridge.
Surrounded by tons of shops and open spaces.
Close to the river.
Good schools.
Should get a nice place in your budget.

Mcodox

A great help - thanks all. Will revisit all these new suggestions. We had slightly discounted Esher because esher centre not near station so had looked at hses nr station and not liked the stock, but it is closer in for train journey so will do a trip there. Have been seriously considering Walton with lots of housing stock in budget and gd schools etc, but not much community, still looks a good option though, but the driver to brentford needs to get over bridge. Hampton would be interesting, but so far haven't seen massive improvement in what we wld get for money. Still is a nice area with gd schools etc. So will do drive by again this weekend. Surbiton we have not really given much time as drive looked worse and seemed a bit suburbiton sprawly rather than a distinct area with a character -again will revisit! Keep the suggestions coming this is really helping formulate ideas for further research!