To think this is incredibly short-sighted and resign?

[Confettishower]

It is in my contract that my work can redeploy me to any office within an hour's distance of my home address based on the need of the business. I have been instructed that I will be moving offices to a location which, according to AA route planner, is 52 minutes from my address. Google maps gives the average travel time between 55 minutes and 1 hr 20 minutes at the times I would be travelling. This would be via car as there is no option for public transport. My current office is 20 minutes away.

I have absolutely no desire to spend up to 2hrs 40 minutes of my day travelling. My manager is going to call me tomorrow to discuss this but I have already decided I won't do it. It will have a detrimental impact on myself and my family and I'm not prepared to do it. Ultimately I am looking at resigning. I feel sad about this. Work have spent a significant amount of time training me and providing professional qualifications and actually I'm really good at my job. Apparently this is the policy and there is no flexibility. It seems utterly ridiculous but apparently if they make an exception for me then that sets precedent. I'll find a new job easily enough but I'm so sad that it's come to this.

Does the contract actually specify one hour? This is not tangible (I.e it could take you an hour to travel 4 miles in traffic, or 50 miles on a motorway). Usually a contract will specify the distance in miles only in time.

Hahaha - congrats on qualifying! Dont leave without speaking to your manager and explaining what you have said here. Such a worthwhile and important role.

They are time travellers from the 1930s

It’s a silly way of them to word the contract term, since there are so many variables as to how long a journey takes and time is not a measure of distance despite being used that way colloquially - by what mode of transport, what time of day, what day of the week, average time, minimum time or maximum time…? I’ve seen similar clauses that say you can be relocated to within X miles of the office which is your primary place of work / the place you’re contracted to be. I find it strange that they’ve put it as a time limit relative to where you live - you can unilaterally change where you live and it would change their powers under the contract.

I think @IAteAllTheTomatoes has given good words to use. I’d also be stating the google maps journey showing 1h 20m.