Where would/do you live in Oxfordshire?

[IJumpedAboardAPirateShip]

Just mulling ideas, if these were your criteria:

Easy access to London (happy to bike or drive 15mins to a station)
Easily commutable to Oxford (30mins)
Village or town with strong community and left leaning
Not in a flood zone
5bed house for up to £650K
Good secondary schools and not too boring for teenagers

Holy grail?!

Avoid Oxford City it's traffic hell. Personally, I'd go for the Vale of the White Horse or up around Adderbury. Finding a "left leaning" village may be a bit tricky. As will 5-beds for £650K.

Type Oxford in Rightmove, 15 mile radius will get you in there in 30 minutes. Currently 196 5 bed houses available for 650k or less.

Yeah done that @Takeittotheboss was mainly wondering about the other factors which obviously right move doesn’t tell you

I think you’ll struggle to find a 5 bed for £650k in an area with all your requirements especially in north oxford. We’re in the process of moving within Oxfordshire and all 4/5 bed houses with garden/schools in decent areas we’ve looked at are upwards of £750k.

Otherwise maybe around Bucks/oxford border - plenty of nice villages but not huge amount for teens ...

Bicester has a direct train to Paddington - not keen on bicester central but surrounding villages are nice.

Have you looked at Wallingford? 15 min drive to Didcot station and half an hour to oxford (bus goes twice an hour).

I live in a village just outside of Wantage. 4 bed detached house, double garage and large garden, 500k. So Wantage gets my vote but not too sure about 'left leaning!' You'll need to go to the city centre or thereabouts for that

I'd suggest Witney. Quite left of centre, about 30 mins from Oxford, and a good community feel about the place (my cousin lived there for quite a few years).

Budget might be an issue, but how about this: www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-83989000.html

Witney...nice market town, Train station to London at Long Hanborough (5 mins away) and 25 mins drive to central Oxford (except at 8am...)
Decent enough Secondary schools (or at least my girls came out with A grades at A level if that's the guide) and enough life for your average teen.
I'm 5 miles further out at Carterton.. considered less posh as basically an RAF town but perfectly decent and houses slightly cheaper as 5 miles further from Oxford!

@Takeittotheboss

Type Oxford in Rightmove, 15 mile radius will get you in there in 30 minutes. Currently 196 5 bed houses available for 650k or less.

Ahahaha

No. A 9 mile radius might get you there in an hour, and that's not a bad day, that's relatively standard.

OP, left leaning might be the tricky bit. 4-5 bed doable for £500-600k in most bits outside the main city.

East Oxford would be my shout, but then that doesn't have the great schools.

Try Eynsham. Barts is a great school, it's got good links, and it's less right-wing than a lot of the villages. Close to Oxford on the bus, but if you need the train then might not be ideal.

Holy grail is right I'm afraid. What's the least important thing on your list? Do you really need 5 beds or is 4 an option?

@StillMedusa

Witney...nice market town, Train station to London at Long Hanborough (5 mins away) and 25 mins drive to central Oxford (except at 8am...) Decent enough Secondary schools (or at least my girls came out with A grades at A level if that's the guide) and enough life for your average teen. I'm 5 miles further out at Carterton.. considered less posh as basically an RAF town but perfectly decent and houses slightly cheaper as 5 miles further from Oxford!

Long hanborough is not 5 mins from Witney, even if you're right on the north east side of the town. It takes more than 5 mins to drive the length of Hanborough on a good day. On the worst day it'll take 20+ mins and then you've still got to park and rely on the cotswold line.

Thanks for responses! If DH ends up working remotely then 5 beds is a must so he has an office space, sad to hear left leaning might be an issue - is Oxfordshire generally brexit territory?

There might be wiggle room on budget, was putting out my hopefully amount! Proximity to oxford is assuming DH might work there, I’m the one going to London and don’t mind the commute as I freelance so it’s not every day all year, but want to keep his commute under 30mins if possible

Really appreciate the responses!

OK, so actual commute time to Oxford under 30 minutes, you're looking at Kidlington, Eynsham, perhaps Bicester. Abingdon isnt great for links and you would have to factor in the A34.
Wantage is a little far out, but some of the villages a bit closer to Oxford might be a possibility (look at A420 links)

Villages like Begbroke might be an option (good bus links), also look at Woodstock, although that'll take you longer than 15 into town.

Where exactly do you need to get to in Oxford?

Dont even consider Witney. It's a good 30 min drive from the oxford ring road, and then additional time on top of that.

at Adderbury being "left leaning".
Kidlington and
Long Crendon have strong communities.

Not brexit territory in Oxford itself, but very much so in a lot of the towns.

there are great houses in town for your budget

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-92995430.html

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-96810620.html

Thankyou!! We don’t actually know if he’s even be working in Oxford, it’s an assumption for now (could end up being horsham/Guildford/brighton) but thought it might be worth checking out what Oxfordshire has to offer before the job hunt/decisions come into play as I know sussex and Surrey really well but not Oxfordshire at all and would be good to do a reccy

Feel free to PM if you want more specifics, I've lived and worked all over the county and far too familiar with all the commuting/traffic issues

I would say to look around the Buckingham, Bicester area. Some lovely villages. Prices seem in your range. Commute is fine, plus two train stations in Bicester running to Oxford and London. Seems plenty of left-minded monied folks to me there😉

Wallingford pretty much ticks all those boxes. Might be a bit expensive though

Does it have to be a bedroom for a home office or could he set up in a downstairs room?

Eg if you can find a 4 bed with more than one downstairs reception room, dining room in addition to a kitchen large enough for a table, conservatory, large utility or even put an insulated cabin in the garden if the cost is less than the difference between a 4 and a 5 bed. Presumably there will be a lot more choice of 4 beds vs 5?

I think Oxfordshire as a whole was over 50% Remain voting as far as Brexit goes. At a general election level then, unless you are in Oxford city or the Oxford/Abingdon constituency (which was very tightly fought last time) you are in safest of safe Conservative territory (Henley has been Conservative since something like 1906). Obviously there is local variation - the closer you are to Oxford (and possibly to places like Harwell and Milton - though I might be wrong about those) the more likely the area is to be Labour or Lib Dem because the Universities and Science/Research firms are major employers and they tend to attract people with an interest in being part of the EU, left - centre/left policies etc. If you look at voter breakdown by division or county council makeup you get a better idea of the local areas.

Driving around the Oxford ring road or into Oxford is hell on earth - and as for the idea of a rush hour . I swear that in term time you might get like 2 hours between 8am-8pm which could be called not rush hour. So, if you need someone to get into Oxford on a regular basis you really really want to either have a direct bus route into Oxford or to be able to drive straight to a park & ride (without going round the ring road) - so in on the A40, in through Kidlington, or up the A34. The A40 out to Witney is regularly on the travel news for delays and accidents so you don't want to go as far west as Witney. If your husband can do flexible start/finish times to avoid the heaviest traffic then that might help his sanity.

As well as Bicester, Oxford and Oxford Parkway stations, you can also get into London from Haddenham and Thame which gives you some options out towards the Buckinghamshire border - there is a bus route from Aylesbury via Haddenham and Thame into Oxford. Not sure about the politics though.

possibly to places like Harwell and Milton - though I might be wrong about those) the more likely the area is to be Labour or Lib Dem because the Universities and Science/Research firms are major employers and they tend to attract people with an interest in being part of the EU, left - centre/left policies etc

I know the Harwell science park. A lot of people who work there don't live locally as they can't afford to. The closest they get is Didcot, which doesn't appear particularly dreadful, but seems to be widely derided as a terrible place to live, but even there is unaffordable to many with the oft said complaint of 'my wages are so far outside the cost of living round here that I can't even afford to live in Didcot'.

You also don't say where in Oxford DH would be working ie: will it be in the city centre? If it is an office on the edge that would probably change advice (due to aforementioned hell on earth ring road). For example, the business park near the Mini Plant (east side of town) is not accessible by park & ride so you would need to look at driving there or using bus routes and that would narrow down your areas massively.

All the traffic info is very helpful, thankyou! We live in a highly congested city now but only a 15min drive from DH’s office, there are various reasons why we need to keep his work life balance manageable.

We’re moving from abroad next year so everything is up in the air re his work, he might end up moving with the same company, he could end up setting up the U.K. arm of it, maybe work for a totally new company, set up something on his own, we don’t know. But he wants to be able to wfh a reasonable amount of time and works in tech so I just found a few different tech companies in Oxford so thought we could start looking at the county in general seeing as it’s well connected for me to get to London and close to my family in Sussex and his family in Coventry

Anyway, lots of superfluous info at this stage.

We could absolutely do a 4bed house if there was a dedicated room for an office, even if he doesn’t get a wfh job I do a lot of work from home too and some of my work may well stay remote so we need a dedicated space that doesn’t turn into a spare room when people come to stay

What about Thame? I live Thame, and while there isn’t an awful lot for teenagers to do it’s a 10 min drive max to Haddenham and Thame Parkway station and approx 20 mins drive to Headington which is on the Outskirts of Oxford, and about 5/10 more minutes Into Oxford city centre. Thame has great primary and secondary schools, some nice cafes and independent shops, but has a mixed population politics-wise I would say. All in all it’s a great town for families with lots of nice countryside surrounding it. House prices should be within your reach too.