Let's have a Poll for best fast commute to waterloo

[AlwaysBusy0]

As title I'm wondering which one of those daily commuting routes is the best, based on your daily experience or knowledge.

Cost of living would be different between but considering rent, council tax and the fact you may not need a car closer to go to the city I'm considering between 2700 and 3100 pound/month.

If you have experience with others fast trains/ commutes routes i would love to know about them.

Like Wimbledon and Earsflied or Canning Town.

which one would you choose and how sould destroying are they? :)

thank you

It’s worth factoring in the cost of commute (generally tfl is much cheaper than national rail from outside the London zones), and the frequency of trains.

I work in Waterloo and live in London so get northern/jubilee which is every 2 minutes, whereas some of my colleagues’ commuter lines are every 30 so a total pain if you miss your train. Also think of alternative routes for engineering work etc.

As PP have said, it’s what you want from your home that matters more - eg city vs suburbs, size of property, local amenities, vibe. Waterloo is a pretty easy place to get to in general.

Waterloo is on the tube. Much easier to consider that. It takes me about ten minutes.

Wandsworth to Waterloo is faster than 25 minutes. I'm in Putney and it's only 20 minutes.

Another vote for Blackheath. Lovely schools, lovely green space, lots of kids activities, cafes and restaurants, brilliant farmers market (although expensive) decent commute although the train doesn't always run to Waterloo east outside of commuter times - check timetable as I'm not up to date on that. Easy to get out of London to the countryside or coast. Don't need a car.

no you don’t!! Yoh would spend your days in traffic.
there’s so much to do in Blackheath but otherwise you can get the train into central or it’s well connected with buses too

We live further out. We did live in esher but couldn't afford to buy so moved just outside the M25.

I drive 10 mins to brookwood station each morning and it's £8 cab ride between 6am and midnight.

Brookwood station is on the fast line to waterloo. Trains home are 30 mins and 40 mins in the morning during rush hour.

Plus affordable housing and nice local village primary schools.

people told us that Weybridge is nice but distant from the city and Camdem is great for school but very very busy in general.
If you have to commute daily which one would you choose? Is the extra money that you spend in Camdem worth it the time you save in commuting?

Thanks for that...i will check that out.

that would be great....Are londoners generally buy stuff online and gets them delivered? Like Ikea stuff and other bulk products?

I'm generally using the worse case scenario. Do you like the commuting from Putney? Is wandsworth nice as they say?
thank you

Rather than looking at commute time I would regroup and focus on the basics:

• who do you live with, will you need schools / nurseries / another commute?
• what type of lifestyle do you want? Parks, flats, house with garden?
• other considerations: do you drive, will you be visiting friends / family in another area, do you need to be close to a particular airport? Will you spend your weekends in London or in the countryside?

And once you have all this worked out you can start looking at areas. Lots of places are within a decent commute of Waterloo.

Personally I prefer the tube to the train (you’re usually closer, there are more services, there are more options when it goes wrong which it regularly does). You will need to balance this with schools if this is a requirement.

That's great ....I'm considering rent+commute+council tax+(if car needed based on location).
In this way I can move around extra budget between those variable.
Example Blackheath wouldn't be that much more expensive that Weybridge plus you get to save 110 hours of commute every year. (i went very deep in my research haha)

There’s an Ikea near Blackheath! In Greenwich.
But yeah I feel we either get everything delivered or if you are getting tons of furniture can hire a van for a day.

Blackheath is so lovely. And if the trains are down, you can get the bus to North Greenwich station and be on the tube. And I think you are a short bus journey to for the DLR.

Having commuting options is golden.

So a lot of my colleagues insisted on moving out of London, due to cost. But then there’s problems all the time on their commutes. So then all they do is complain about how long it takes them to get to work as well as it being so expensive.

• All the area that I'm considering have very good primary schools with capacity (from locrating)
• family area...we have a 5 years old girl and she love play with kids. We kind understand that is a trade off between distance and property size.
• we would love to see the countryside and we don't have family. We are from abroad so we will be busy visiting London for at least the first and second year....after that we will be staying we will probably move away from the city.
• evaluating if getting a Ev through salary sacrifice or rent a car when needed. We wont know how much would it cost until there
• the focus is to have the easiest commute possible. We are coming from a life without commuting (very easy 20 minutes door to door) so I'm trying to minimize the shock between new and pass working life :)

thank you

If you're commuting to Waterloo, you could look up the Bakerloo line. Queen's Park is a lovely area, especially for families, and is about 25mins ish on the tube to Waterloo

Thank you.

If your priority is the easiest possible commute I could aim for something on a tube line or with multiple transport options eg Blackheath as suggested earlier. If you’ve never commuted in the UK I suspect a trainline commute into London might be a horrible shock.

I would personally look at the northern line: Stockwell, Oval, Nine Elms. I would rule out Weybridge and Wolking as too far. Do double check the schools on these locations if they are something you want to consider.

Oh, and if you do end up quite central I wouldn’t bother with a car. It takes ages to get anywhere, expensive to park and a struggle for on street parking. You can rent a car from a car club if you need one and most things are quick on the tube or just easier in a taxi. Most places deliver.

The 22 minute train from Woking into Waterloo is not every train, they can vary. SWR is always busy in commuter hours. When SWR is running ok it is, well, ok (trains pretty grim, not clean, usually packed but you get there). When it goes wrong, which is increasingly common, it’s a nightmare, but wherever you live you will need contingency.

The centre of Woking is mostly flats. There are more houses are out in the villages; you do need to factor the travel to the station though - Horsell is walkable but St John’s is not, for example. There’s a cluster of villages around Brookwood station which a previous poster mentioned.

Primary schools: lots of good choice, both state and private. Better state schools have small catchments, a couple are faith schools (Catholic) and you should also be aware that many Surrey primaries split into lower and middle schools so you switch schools at Year 3. The state secondary provision can also be ok but you have to be very careful of catchment which is very tight indeed for the good schools. Lots of private provision at secondary (although none in Woking itself yet, a couple on the way) with kids being bussed all over the county from Woking.

Woking’s worked really well for us but we needed to be this side of London and we wanted good access to countryside. The commute sucks not because of its length but because of delays, poor service and crowded trains. I’d start with your budget and key criteria that aren’t transport time related and work from there.

And Woking is very handy for Heathrow if you will be travelling for work or family at all.

All the places you are looking at have different vibes and amenities.

what would you want a home
nwighbiurhood to be like? What amenities are important?

We are looking to get the best daily commute to waterloo. We already have accepted the idea that the housing won't be as good as we are used to where we are living but I don't want to make my partner wasted hours on commuting.
We won't stay in Uk forever so we are setting on those points based on importance:
1)best commute
2)very good primary school
3) community
4)size housing

thank you