Friendly, liberal, community-focused places to live in the south?

[Lettherebelight]

Could anyone recommend villages/towns which are welcoming places to live with a strong community drive and a train station? (basically Hebden Bridge in the south).

Looking roughly at the area south of London, no further west than Exeter and no further east than Eastbourne.

Lewes?

Shoreham by sea...where lots of my contemporaries with young DC move when they can't afford Brighton

Stroud?

I would have said Totnes, but that's probably too far down for you.

Chelmsford? Conservative in politics but otherwise very diverse. Lots of people move from London for the schools.

Budget?

I was also going to suggest Totnes.

Bristol, Brighton

Chepstow?

Thanks! I don't know Stroud or Totnes at all so going to look those up. Brighton is probably too expensive but Shoreham could be interesting, I didn't know if it had its own character still.

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/money/2018/feb/02/lets-move-to-stroud-gloucestershire-cotswolds

Stroud and Chepstow look great but they are probably a pushing the distance too much (at least for now)

Bristol?

I love visiting Bristol (& Brighton) but we're thinking of somewhere more village / town size

The Chew Valley is just outside Bristol, near Bath.

Would highly recommend looking into it, it's beautiful

Stonehouse is nice - DSis lives there.

I can also vouch for Shoreham. DD lives there and it is much nicer than it used to be.

Sorry, just seen your post about distance, Stonehouse is near Stroud so may not be suitable.

Midhurst has lots of independent shops so might have a good community vibe. I don't know it that well though. Ditto Petersfield which seems quite nice. Midhurst doesn't have a station though. Petersfield does.

You could also consider Fleet in Hampshire which has good transport links, it's not very pretty but often comes top in quality of life surveys and there is quite a decent community feel with a carneval, Christmas festival, food festival etc.

The only other places I can think of are Rye in East Sussex (has a railway station), Tenterden in Kent (out of area for you I think though) and Stockbridge in Hampshire but neither have railway stations

You could also have a look at Dorking.

Another vote for Lewes

I immediately thought Lewes as well!