Cheapest town/ cities that are commutable to london

hazyjo

We'll need more info than that lol.

Budget?
Essentials?
Salary?
Earning potential?
Buying alone?
Are you in the office 5 days a week?

Don't forget, with a long commute comes a huge season ticket price. Got to weigh it all up.

LegallyLandlord

Maidstone is great. Train are under an hour and go into London Bridge, Waterloo East, Charing Cross, Victoria and at peak times St Pancras. 

There are 4 grammar schools and lots of lovely villages in the surrounding area. For the price of a one bed flat in Finsbury Park you can get a Victorian terraced house with a garden. Lots of new builds too. 

Jonboy_1984

Didcot is popular enough to have dedicated trains starting in the morning rush, with under an hour to Paddington. Plenty of others drive there from the surrounding villages.

bouicca21

There’s always Thamesmead (or as one newspaper renamed it, Erith Marshes) …

Murphybear

Brie said:

I know people that work in London that commute from Poole.  I wouldn't fancy it myself as I don't want to spend a minimum of 5 hours a day getting to and from work.  Expensive too with the train and no easy way to discount it if you are WFH a couple of days a week.  I doubt anywhere in between Poole and Waterloo is any cheaper although the commute would be quicker and less ££.

Poole can be very expensive especially if you fancy living in Sandbanks.  . It’s in Dorset which is generally a very expensive place to live.  Poole would also be a long and expensive commute.  

p00hsticks

lr1277 said:

One commuted from Scarborough and the other commuted from Harrogate. Cost of living was cheap (well for Scarborough) but long train journeys. Though both were at their desks by 9am. I think both worked near Kings Cross though.

I've just had a look and you probably couldn't do that now. The first train of the day from Scarborough, leaving at 05:46, doesnt; get you into Kings cross until 09:09. The return journey leaving at 18:00 gets you back to Scarborough at 20:53.

And you'd be paying close to £20,000 a year for an anuual season ticket.  

Not something I'd fancy doing even once a week, let alone every weekday, however cheap.

Section62

lr1277 said:

I could suggest Hatfield. Close to the A1 and commutable by train into KGX or Moorgate. Also pretty good tube connections with every train stopping at Finsbury Park.

I don't rate the town centre but that is me.

I know a couple of people currently looking in the Hatfield/St Albans area to get out of London.

By all accounts Hatfield town centre is a disaster area, but the council have a (long-running) regeneration project which involves the provision of new housing adjacent to and above the shopping areas.  These are an easy walk to the station.

And Hatfield is much cheaper than St Albans for something equidistant from the station.

Choirgrl

“Commutable” can mean different things depending on whether you’re talking about every week day or a couple of days a week.

I moved to Northampton (from Surrey) late last year, which for me hit the sweet spot of a reasonable commute twice a week and more affordable house prices. 

TripleH

Harrogate is expensive for Yorkshire.

Scarborough is cheaper and further (train is best way to get there).

Manchester is 2 hours on train to London

Harlow.... shudder but the commute isn't too bad.

Remember to factor the journey from the train station you arrive at to your office in as well. I had a 1 hour train ride to London then it took 40 minutes to get to the office.

Maybe work backwards from your office to a mainline train station and let us know that (people might know places on that line).

Sunsaru

Section62 said:

lr1277 said:

I could suggest Hatfield. Close to the A1 and commutable by train into KGX or Moorgate. Also pretty good tube connections with every train stopping at Finsbury Park.

I don't rate the town centre but that is me.

I know a couple of people currently looking in the Hatfield/St Albans area to get out of London.

By all accounts Hatfield town centre is a disaster area, but the council have a (long-running) regeneration project which involves the provision of new housing adjacent to and above the shopping areas.  These are an easy walk to the station.

And Hatfield is much cheaper than St Albans for something equidistant from the station.

Hatfield town centre is a dump. Really awful but yea they slowly working on it. 
Not sure I could recommend it but maybe thats because I used to live there and have seen the decline.