Cheapest town/ cities that are commutable to london

MFWannabe

Roadtonowhere100121 said:

Can anyone suggest any people? I am depressed 

I think you need to give more details than you are for people to be able to advise 

1) Renting or selling?
2) Budget
3) Do you work all week in office or work from home some days? 

4) based on number 3, are you able to relocate jobs? Does it have to be London? 

5) You state you are depressed is moving the answer? Is it the reason for your depression?

user1977

And where exactly you're commuting to? There's not much point in recommending somewhere handy for one rail terminus if you'd then have to trek across central London.

lr1277

I agree on all the comments about Hatfield. But some property can be cheap.

The other factor to bear in mind is the train service.
What happens if your preferred train is delayed/cancelled? Are you ok getting to work late? Or getting home late?
How about everyday getting the train before your ideal train incase it is delayed or cancelled?
Can you work from home? Can you stay in London overnight id there is a catastophic failure on your train line?
Remember Southern Rail? A few years ago their service was slated for essentially not running. I don’t know if that is still the case. That can happen to any train service. Would you be able to cope?

When I was living in London, I lived near Great Portland Street tube station. Rents was expensive but travel costs weren’t bad. Also if one tube line wasn’t working I had options for other tube lines, other tube stations or even a taxi. Btw now that I am older I wouldn’t be able to stand the 24hr noise.
All I am saying is if you live closer you have options for getting around instead of relying on one train service.

Edited to add: I needed those travel options because I was working in IT consultancy. My clients could be anywhere in the Uk on different days of the week. Once I walked home from Liverpool Street as there were no tubes, buses nor taxis.

knightstyle

We moved to Grantham two years ago and it is just over an hour on the train from London.  Good town with lots going on and very reasonable house prices.

Skiddaw1

Jonboy_1984 said:

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.

I was going to suggest Didcot too (I rather like Didcot and the surrounding villages are lovely). Reading is another possibility. We lived in Reading for many years (unsurprisingly I have a soft spot for Reading) and it's very easy to commute either by train (Paddington or Waterloo direct and these days the Elizabeth Line runs out to Reading) or car (if you can stand the M4 during the rush hour).

AFF8879

lr1277 said:

Once I walked home from Liverpool Street as there were no tubes, buses nor taxis.

Was that the day of the tube bombings? Trying to imagine any other scenario where there’s literally zero public transport (even taxis) from Liverpool Street!

mi-key

knightstyle said:

We moved to Grantham two years ago and it is just over an hour on the train from London.  Good town with lots going on and very reasonable house prices.

I know Grantham well as my gran was from Sleaford and we used to go there as kids. Lots of nice villages around that area as well and house prices are pretty reasonable

lr1277

AFF8879 said:

lr1277 said:

Once I walked home from Liverpool Street as there were no tubes, buses nor taxis.

Was that the day of the tube bombings? Trying to imagine any other scenario where there’s literally zero public transport (even taxis) from Liverpool Street!

No long before then. Sometime between 1997 and 2002.

No tube trains running through Liverpool Street tube station. Don't remember why. That was for both the surface line and the deep Central line. If it had been a case of walking to the next tube station on either line I would have done that.

Buses were running but were full and there were long queues at each bus stop.

Taxis whilst around all had passengers and weren't picking up. This was in the days you have to find a taxi instead of an Uber coming to you. Also with such an incident, I am sure Uber would apply surge pricing.

I am sure I could have waited for the tube, bus or taxi, but till when?

It was a sunny warm day so walking seemed like a good choice.

I think by the the time I was halfway home, there were taxis, but chose to continue walking.

lincroft1710

Wellingborough in Northamptonshire, EMR claim 56 mins travel time to London. Or Peterborough as quick as 50 mins

Sallyforth

Wakefield area if you have flexibility and can perhaps work from home some days.