How much of a necessity is having a car where you live?

[OneRealFinch]

Not very maybe at night more so

Essential. We live in a village with a very infrequent bus service, three miles from the nearest train station. Cycling is not an option either (just too unsafe, cars and lorries speed round the country roads round here and there are definitely no cycle lanes).

I live in the centre and public transport is excellent and cheap or free. I have a car but really dont need one

Exactly.
Given everyone benefits from roads either directly using a car or indirectly using buses, trucks and vans to get deliveries. They'd be as well to incorporate road tax into general taxation.
Simplify the tax system in the UK.

Essential 😂 rural Welsh hills, farmer.

I mean technically I work from home so no need for a car but if I can't move stock or pop to the feed store or vets the animals would be pretty screwed fairly quickly and we'd swiftly be over-run and over-crowded if we couldn't get the to market.

I live in an urban area between 2 major cities - 14miles to one - 24 to the other. The bus service is appalling - the last bus from one city - where my DH works - is at 6.30pm. When your shift ends at 10pm it's not much use - so as he doesn't drive I go and get him. It's been like this for years, estate agents blurb is "excellent transport links"....but only if you have a car.

Not very. Small market town, everything's walkable. Station 15 mins away with connection to London main line and the cabs are reasonably priced.

We are not in a mess though are we. Some people need cars, some people choose to have cars, some people choose to use public transport, some are unable to, or choose not to - we are all allowed to choose.

The majority of people who live in the very rural village I live in come from families who lived here for generations

At one point farming could sustain a whole family financially, now it cant.

At one time we had a train station in the village, a pub, a school, a post office and a shop, and a regular bus service.

Whilst some of these no longer exist due to snaller family sizes some have also suffered from government/council cuts.

Im not sure why people living in small villages growing the food that you eat should be penalised with higher taxes because some of the family now have to work in nearby towns, or take their children to schools there and with the village school closed and the train and buses no longer available they have no choice to take a car

Given we already pay higher council tax than people living somewhere like london its not like it's just some idyllic paradise filled with pensioners 🙄

I think you need to read my post again. It should be extremely clear that I was talking about commuters and retirees who move to rural area for lifestyle reasons, NOT farmers and other people who are actually working there.

The countryside is a big place, and your village is clearly one that is centered around agriculture and similar things. I know there are villages like that. I also know quite a lot of villages where very few people work locally and it’s essentially a kind of “extra-far-out suburb” for people who work in town or used to work there before they retired. These are different situations and different types of village.

How do I not care?! I live in the US where a car is actually essential for most people. I also drive a Tesla so I'm fairly sure my car isn't polluting your children.

Essential. Tiny village with no public transport, shops or any other amenities.

No public transport for at least 8 miles in any direction. I wfh, and whilst I live outside a hamlet rather than a village, I'm very lucky to have a little shop and pub within a 10 minute walk.

Its a necessity. Im disabled and can't physically get to our nearest public transport and a journey of 20 minutes in the car can take 1.5 hours on the bus because it goes into a central location then out again on other spokes. My kids have SEN and I can't get them to various therapies without a car. Im a single Mum, ex decided to move the other town over, not too bad by car, 1.5 hours each way on the bus. I couldn't get my kids to their sport commitments without a car or get to my GP and specialist without a car. My life and my kid's lives would be very limited without a car.

In answer to OPs question...

Essential... I live in a popular, busy area that is sandwiched between two big towns. Likely because of this the local high street doesn't have much, and what is there is very expensive (think Tesco Express/garage price mark ups) Previously the public transport was good but it's been cut dramatically.

Likely be manageable IF my childrens school/clubs were all in the same area. Due to timings it would be impossible to do without the use of our car. Also, I'd struggle for the "big shop" and likely end up tripling my food bill by shopping local.

Research or curiosity maybe

Where I live public transport is very regular. The problem is the price. It costs the same to go 2 miles as it does to go 15. I work 3 miles away and it would cost me and Dh £26 each to use the bus. We travel together in the car instead.

Essential for me. The Dcs school is 12 miles away and my workplace is two miles on from that. It takes about 35 minutes by car and would be the following if using public transport;

Route one- walk 30-ish minutes to get to bus that leaves every hour. Route then takes 1 hour 15 minutes. I've done it when the car is being repaired. Total travel time assuming I get to the bus just when it is leaving 1 hour 45 or 3 hours 30 a day.

Route 2 - walk 5 minutes to bus - buses every 10 minutes. 25 minutes to bus interchange to wait for a bus that goes every 30 minutes and takes again 1 hour 15 minutes. Total travel and waiting time (assuming all changes are made easily) 2 hours 15 or 4 hours 30 a day.

Then reverse in the evening.

Now yes I could do all that every day but I need to be in work for 08.30 and so I would need to be on a bus by 6.30 at the very latest. Additionally DS1 has SEN and LDs and is not currently in a situation to negotiate the buses on his own. So he would have to come with me but would have to hang around outside the school until the gates open and then hang around again until I can get to him after work. I do choose to prioritise what is the most likely way we can get through our day with minimum stress and anxiety. So yes, for me a car is a necessity. Because my situation makes it quite necessary.

Essential - we live in a small hamlet in Yorkshire. Nearest shop is nearly an hours walk way, both schools nearly an hour away (primary school slightly less if you’re prepared to go across a field, but I’m not 100% sure there’s a right of way there). Doctor, dentist etc all in nearest market town a few miles away.

bus service? One bus every two hours but it doesn’t line up with the start of work, school or anything else.

cycling - not if you want to live. The Lorries and delivery drivers go so fast round the lanes it’s ridiculous. I risk it from time to time but won’t let dd (aged 11) do it.

i am the worlds most careful driver as I don’t want to pick up points or run the risk of losing my license for anything, ever. We would have to sell up and move.

Given the population increase, it's a good thing that people move out of the towns to spread out. Towns and cities are already congested with housing shortages, so we have to find ways to spread out more and make more use of the less densely populated areas including smaller towns and rural areas.

It makes no sense to spend billions on improving public transport so that no one in small towns, villages, hamlets etc needs a car. Far better to accept that public transport only really works in large towns and cities, and accept that cars are pretty much essential for people living anywhere else.

17% of the UK's population live in rural areas, it's not a small amount by any means. Could the larger towns and cities accommodate another 10 million people if we wanted them to relocate so as to reduce car dependence by encouraging people to live in large towns and cities instead??

If anything, to deal with housing crisis, etc., we need to spread people out even more, encourage people to move from cities to more rural areas, just to make better use of our resources. The more people living in rural areas, the more likely that better public transport would be viable for them simply due to a bigger "pool" of potential users. Same with schools, shops, healthcare, etc.

It wouldn't be necessary if our bus "service" actually ran properly.

It's a small town so we could walk to a supermarket/doctor's surgery etc, but the closest train station is five miles and the buses are shit. They don't run to timetable, we often get three passing within minutes then none for the next hour. They're also old and knackered and frequently break down/catch fire.

Not essential if we only want to go into town which is in fairly easy walking distance but if you want to go elsewhere, pretty essential. The town has a full range of amenities but these are being put under considerable pressure by the building of two massive housing developments with no accompanying infrastructure.
The local buses are poor, very limited in their destinations and few and far between. We do have a train station but the only times I've used it the train has been delayed or cancelled.

Kent village here. Car is essential for us. Although we’re well served for shops and have a train station with direct services to London and back down the line to Maidstone the bus service is limited and we have no buses on Sundays. There’s nothing direct to local hospitals for instance so that means taxis if you’re without your own car.

Also my elderly mum lives in SE London. It’s a 40 min drive to her but would be around 1.5 hours minimum by train as we’d have to go into London and out again. If she rang and needed us urgently, especially at night, it would be impossible without a car.

Essential if you need to get anywhere. There is a bus three times a day or a walk or cycle to the ferry for a trip to the nearest city.

Oh so we are all supposed to live in cities then? In which houses do you think we should all move to? We can dispense with our love of gardens and move. To where exactly are you planning?

I live within the Manchester commuter belt. What's happened over the last few years is that fewer young people learn to drive and they have flocked to city living because they don't have a choice. But this has pushed up prices on houses to a point that's insane. Renting a house in a dodgy area of Manchester is now more expensive than renting an equivalent in a leafy suburb. And ironically, when new build estates are built the trend is to build estates with no facilities and disconnected to public transport. Because it's not part of planning strategy to consider the implications of disconnected estates.

I've looked at this time and again and spoken to local councillors about the issues who just go 'yeah we know and agree'.

This we also how we have ended up in the North with a large number of provincial towns which are economically deprived. People who can't afford to move to the cities become trapped in these towns with no jobs. It's not just a rural issue. Getting from one side of town to an industrial estate the other side of town is an impossibility for many. Roads are so unsafe, I don't begrudge anyone who refuses to cycle. Never mind the fact that you can't stick two kids on a bike and take them to school or to childcare because living in a smaller settlement means it's not on your doorstep and there isn't easy public transport to it. And then everyone wonders why voting patterns in provincial towns is different to cities.

This isn't just a rural problem. This is a city problem with people in decision making roles living in cities and having snooty attitudes.

Honest to god, the snobbery about this is unpalatable. Times have changed. Trends have changed. And people who have lived for generations in these places are dismissed with a handwave by someone who is used to job mobility and probably has moved away from where they grew up and assumes everyone else is in a position to do the same or shock horror wants to do the same because the only choice that is valid, is their own.

Buses used to be a lot more frequent in so many areas. Cancellation of bus routes isn't an imaginary thing. Nor would protests and complaints against their cancellation suggest there is a lack of demand. The issue is the argument about 'viability' - which is essentially not about viability and is about public planning and finances in terms of priorities. The priority at government level is to build roads and not build a long term mass transit policy for those outside the capital.

If you go to places throughout Europe there are massively different policies and accessibility to public transport varies wildly amongst comparable provincial towns and rural areas to British ones.

At its heart this is, and always has been, an issue for central government. It's not about individuals who just try and get by day by day.

I'm not going to be lectured to buy city dwellers or people with economic mobility on this one. Cos it's blindly ignorant bullshit.

Not at all. We specifically chose a location where we wouldn't be dependent on a car. We live in the suburb of a city and can walk to work, school, city centre, shops parks, restaurants etc.