Any other towns in Surrey/Kent within this budget?

[JeffyJeffington]

Budget max 650k
Space- want 3-4 beds, ideally 1200sqft plus. Off road parking
Commute - Charing Cross or Waterloo, max train journey time 45 mins
Within 1 mile of station- i.e. Walking distance
Access to m25 for journeys to family in east anglia and west midlands

Nice to haves
Area with a town centre and decent shops
some cultural diversity
Good secular state schools

Candidates:
Thin on the ground!
Considered Godalming & Guildford - but look too expensive.
West Byfleet and Woking
Tonbridge
More of a 'London' option- Beckenham/Penge borders

Any other ideas? Thank you!

o yeah avoid aldershot not a nice place bad secondary

Thames Ditton and Esher and Claygate all lovely by classic expensive commuter belt and struggles with getting into decent primary catchments.

Also second Dorking area- great value for money, less congested and stunning countryside. Bit more chilled basically rather than benign a dormer town for London.

Pets wood has a local centre with restaurants, coffee shop, bank, couple of independent shops (station square side). More of a strip of shops and a crappy morrisons on the other side (Queensway). But Bromley town centre reasonably nearby with large high street and shopping centre. I prefer Hayes personally but the transport links from Hayes not as convenient as petts wood which is in both the Victoria and Charing Cross train lines. Orpington has excellent train links but the high street has struggled to cope with out of town centres/bluewater and it feels a bit depressed. West wickham might be another option. Again, good primary schools but best to aim for area within Langley boys/girls secondary catchments (though correspondent price hike). It has a good high street and again, close to Bromley for a larger town centre.

I like Bromley. It's a bit dull, as a borough - though pence and anerley majorly on the up and less suburban (house prices are rocketing)band beckenham sort of in between. More tricky in terms of secondary schools there - or at least that's been the problem historically, I don't have direct recent experience).

I live in ashtead and had a similar budget to you (18months ago so not sure what has changed). Got a 4 bed semi, with off street parking, can walk to station. Primary schools are fab here, I'm not sure about secondaries as dcs are not at that age yet. But there are a few around. St Andrews (catholic school) just got into the top 35ish in the country.
It really is a lovely place to live for families!

Sevenoaks? Hildenborough?
I think looking at Hampshire is a good idea though.

Worcester Park. Waves to @ohtheroses

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-56370190.html

7 minutes walk from Teddington High Street, less than a mile to Teddington Railway station (to Waterloo) and on the riverside between Kingston and Richmond. Not a pretty looking house but a great location and scope to extend/improve.

Egham, Surrey - seems to meet your criteria. Not sure about aircraft noise though!

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-62796608.html

Where do you live now?

I suppose to me most of these places aren't really "towns" as such it's all just London urban sprawl these days but there are some more rural spots nearish by just like London as some huge parks etc.

Will you need state school places?

Worplesdon (it's between Woking and Guildford 3 miles each way) and has it's one train station direct to CJ and Waterloo.

Surrounding areas Sutton Green, Jacobs well and Burpham.

Sutton green particularly nice - lovely pub, river, country feel.

Some good suggestions to investigate thanks. We are currently in the area between anerley and beckenham. We're a bit in the middle and not really part of anywhere. If we stayed here i'd like to get closer to penge as it's got a nice little high st, pubs etc. bur can't realistically afford a big enough house there. And in the long term a move to surrey seems more sensible to make journeys to family easier. At the moment getting out to the m25 and out westwards is grim.

Will need state school places yes and dc not school age yet so feel all at sea and need to start narrowing down to a smaller number of areas but finding it hard! Need to do more exploring i think. mainly When we went to woking we drove through worplesdon but couldn't find the middle of it, just the station. Might be a bit too villagey for us but worth considering thanks

Worplesdon isn't much of a place, and pretty spread out, Worplesdon Primary isn't even in Worplesdon. Its nice of you want rural.
www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-58088971.html this is in a nice area and below your budget.
www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-44772222.html this is a bit further from the station but in a pretty desirable area for schools and has local shops.
www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-64023125.html this is the cheapest 4 bed I could see, nice area.

West Byfleet will tick your boxes, except for the cultural diversity bit! Although to be fair, several of the places you mentioned will also be rather white and middle-class, at least on the surface. Trains are to Waterloo, 4 an hour, 2 fast and 2 slow. You will probably be looking at 3, rather than 4, beds unless you are prepared for more of a walk to the station though. Not much in the way of "town centre" shopping, apart from a Waitrose, several coffee shops and a few independent boutiques and gift shops. However you are close to Woking and Guildford for shopping and there is a huge Tesco/M&S just up the road, as well as Argos, Mothercare etc.

Ebbsfleet?

There are no bargains to be had in Esher or Thames Ditton. I wouldn't say they are very culturally diverse but they are lovely areas.

In Thames Ditton you have a choice of this... www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-58072141.html

Esher this.. www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-57693778.html

Claygate this, but you might not get into the desired schools... www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-58074931.html

Try Long Ditton/Berrylands/Tolworth in Surbiton - more diverse, quicker train links & zone 6 (if going from Surbiton station). Some good primaries but don't know enough about the high schools.

What about Hither Green? A friend lives there and loves it. Good transport links (into Waterloo East, I think?). No idea about schools though.

Have you looked at www.commutefrom.com

Witley - a couple of stops south of Godalming
www.primelocation.com/for-sale/details/42753513?search_identifier=445d95480699cf4c7e803fc85ee7f467#vdHZERBLwPJGdR1f.97
www.primelocation.com/for-sale/details/41623653?search_identifier=445d95480699cf4c7e803fc85ee7f467#B84kc28aZfUQUXit.97

Farnham
www.primelocation.com/for-sale/details/42012453?search_identifier=412713c90a43184dab4528c9995ff5f2#Rqo7UEpP5dVsyDHc.97
www.primelocation.com/for-sale/details/42652730?search_identifier=28176e766c5500355635196b260a21a1#ChDvsUsgSkmCQsMh.97

Another vote for Petts Wood. Great commuter links, good community feel, lots of shops and restaurants- do check out both sides of the railway and not just the side most people drive past. The East side is particularly pretty. How about this one five mins from the station. www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-46661337.html

Raynes Park, New Malden
But used to live in Bromley and loved it.

tonbridge would tick your main boxes pretty well.

When we were looking some time ago we looked at some of the new builds in Dunton Green close to Sevenoaks. I thought they were nice and close to London. Not sure any of them are on sale right now.

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-46230489.html

If you are willing to extend your train journey by 10 minutes then you can get more house for your money in some of the nice villages out of Tonbridge such as:

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-58288603.html

If you're considering suburbia then Sutton might suit: fantastic schools, busy town centre but close proximity to the countryside, easy access to the M25 with barely any traffic along the way. Your budget would be sufficient for a comfortable family home. Commuting would be relatively cheap (zone 5) with direct trains into Victoria, Blackfriars, the city + London Bridge at peak times.

Thanks for all suggestions. Lots of other options to think about. In particular the thread has made me realise we need to think beyond waterloo and charing cross- at least to victoria and london bridge. Thinking Redhill might be worth exploring as good quick train.