Where can we live without a car?

[DespairingInLondon]

We're thinking of leaving London but really do not want to have to get a car.

Our children will be in secondary school soon, so we want them to have social lives but without having to drive them everywhere.

Tell me about the places you know within about 2 hours of London where you truly can live without a car. Frequent, reliable public transport, safe cycling options, walk to town centre and shops, etc.

I was going to say Cardiff too. Ironically, given the car in the name! But I was there for a while recently and loved how easy it was to get about on foot or public transport and how quiet all the roads were. Quite a shock coming back to London traffic madness after that.

@mumsiedarlingrevolta, the aircraft noise in Windsor is nowhere near as bad as west london

You'd get a house with 1m in Windsor.

...but they might expand Heathrow

With teenagers in the mix, OP needs not only somewhere where you can get a house on or near a bus route (relatively easy) but also somewhere where most other people do too, so that the teenagers can get to their friends and vice versa. There needs to be a culture of teenagers making their own way around and not all relying on their parents for lifts. Unless you are in a big city, there will always be some who come in from more rural areas, but if that's more the exception than the rule then hopefully between the parents of those teenagers and taxis you will be fine. What you don't want to be is the weird teenager whose parents don't have a car who either needs to beg lifts or forgo a social life.

That being the case, OP I think you need to be thinking city sized places, not market towns that happen to have a fast train line to London.

On the Cardiff theme:
www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/115879094#
Well within budget, within a mile of Cardiff Central station, right near big park. Just to give you an idea.

Haven’t RTFT but I live in Reading and don’t drive. The buses here are really excellent and there are also several local train stations (Tilehurst, Reading West, Earley and Green Park which is currently under construction) which take you to the town centre. It’s 25 mins to Paddington on the train and the grammar schools here are among the top state schools in the country.

That house in Pontcanna, Cardiff is lovely! It's a nice area! Go for it OP!

@TheWholeWorld

I'm laughing like a drain at the suggestion you can do without a car in Birmingham.

I get the distinct impression the people saying this are all drivers.

The bus service from KH/Moseley is a disaster at the minute, a 15 minute journey into town now regularly takes 40+ minutes.

The cross city line is ok but trains are regularly cancelled. They've just suspended the tram service indefinitely. I'm very glad I can walk to work or I would be screwed.

For example, I recently travelled from Sutton Coldfield to the Jewellery Quarter. It took an hour and a half on public transport. I could have walked it quicker.

Me too. I currently live car free in London but when I lived in Birmingham I had to buy a car - it is 100% a driver's city and public transport is awful

@Spindelina

There are plenty of decent sized market towns with teens and even kids making their own way around and going to each other's homes. We live near a secondary school and it pretty much only takes kids from around the town centre who all walk there.

As I said the main draw back to not driving in towns is the area you are looking at to buy will be much smaller so not a lot of choice. Rather than getting a big semi/ detached in the burbs, we have a terrace that we will probably extend and might not get the money back on. But being able to just walk everywhere is a price worth paying for us - I mean, I can't even drive so not much choice there.

There are plenty of decent sized market towns with teens and even kids making their own way around and going to each other's homes. We live near a secondary school and it pretty much only takes kids from around the town centre who all walk there.

I suppose the answer is to check the catchment area and school bus routes. My experience is closer to Spindelina’s, so it’s worth checking.

Having said that, catchment areas can be big in London too. The difference is that public transport will exist and if it breaks down there will be a reasonable alternative.

Where I live it’s normal to go to a sixth form college 30 miles away because of the great train service - which is fine until we have the wrong kind of snow or a tree on the line.

Yeah, when I said city-sized I think that's what I meant. You need somewhere big enough that it is the norm, rather than the exception, to live on a decent bus / tram / etc route.

Not a market town where all the secondaries have a big catchment and loads of village kids.

This place could work :
www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/114342167#/?channel=RES_BUY

I wouldn't @Taoneusa, no railway line, therefore reliant on bus services/cabs, hilly so not great for cycling and walking everywhere. Over 2hrs to London

Loughton. Central line, even the night tube. Supermarkets and a nice high street. Schools are good and many accessible via trains. £1m is a healthy, healthy budget.

Alternatively Leigh-on-Sea/ Westcliff. Leigh has a great high street with a number of independents too. It's a proper city and there is a lot of local culture going on. The seafront is great for cycling and the trains into London are frequent (and cheap). Again £1m is a great budget.

but they might expand Heathrow @ILoveShula

Maybe a local has more insight on this than I do, but this really doesn't seem on the cards in the medium term anymore. Terminal 4 is all but closed and passenger numbers will be semi-permanently lower while other countries decide how to deal with COVID (regardless of UK policy this will happen). It doesn't seem like good business.

Oxford is perfectly doable on your budget – very cycle friendly and culture of teens walking/cycling and taking the bus to see friends. Also good links to London (train or bus). A couple of examples in different parts of the city: www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/113978879#/?channel=RES_BUY
www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/113978879#/?channel=RES_BUY

Sorry, meant to link to this one in Headington:
www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/115888856#/?channel=RES_BUY

Solihull.

I would live in Oxford like a shot- so much going on and a brilliant place for teens. Expensive but you have a good budget.

I grew up near to Solihull, used to get the bus / train into there (from village) and then onto Birmingham. Public transport is ok, not as good as London but better than more rural places where they don't have any. Your secondary age children will be fine entertaining themselves at weekends etc and meeting up with their friends. Central locations will be at the top end of your budget. 'Slow' train into London from Solihull takes about 1h40m, faster train from NEC takes 1h20m (but you need a car to get there). Trains and buses all head into Birmingham for when kids get older.

However, Solihull without a car is very restrictive and certainly makes things take a whole lot longer, depending on where you want to go. What happens if you want to go into the countryside - that doesn't do public transport, or to kids clubs, or to birthday parties etc outside of the main town centre?

There's a big difference between moving somewhere with public transport for kids to get to school and ferry themselves around at the weekends, and not having a car at all...

OP sorry for taking over your thread!

What happens if you want to go into the countryside - that doesn't do public transport, or to kids clubs, or to birthday parties etc outside of the main town centre?

There's a big difference between moving somewhere with public transport for kids to get to school and ferry themselves around at the weekends, and not having a car at all...

That is exactly the choice we all have to make. Do we think the convenience of our leisure access to the countryside is more important than the potential impact on our carbon footprints of living car-free if we are based in a large town/city where that is doable.

I'm walking the Cotswold Way by bus with my primary age kids. You can get into the countryside, you just need to think from the starting point of the bus routes and then see what along the route rather than the staring point of a particular location and see if you can get there.

Kids clubs - my kids know that if they want to do a regular activity, it has to be accessible by public transport from our house. So they don't do gymnastics. Plenty of activities are based in town / city centres.

Parties: if you choose somewhere where bus travel is more the norm, rarely an issue. Or you get a taxi. But actually, my experience is that most people in the sort of naice areas where you get £1m houses are very enamoured / curious about car-free (even if they have lots of reasons they can't do it themselves). One of my kids' friends had a party somewhere out of town on a Sunday. We declined the invitation because we couldn't get there. One of the parents offered her a lift. She went. There's a difference between being the person who is always asking for lifts because you've chosen a location and/or lifestyle where you need a car, and other people recognising that you are doing a good thing and helping you with that on the odd occasion when they make it difficult for you by their choice of location. My DCs out-of-town birthday party was a train trip away (I paid all the fares).

@ILoveShula

I wouldn't *@Taoneusa*, no railway line, therefore reliant on bus services/cabs, hilly so not great for cycling and walking everywhere. Over 2hrs to London

It's less than half a mile from Bradford station (though that isn't a fast line to London).

Nottingham
Train to London is 1.42 hrs
You would get more for your money, good tram network so you could be just outside
Great for restaurants, plenty for teens - what are their interests?

I wouldn’t go for Solihull - for the same reasons that people said about Birmingham. Theoretically the public transport should be great, realistically it’s not. It’s worse now than when I was at uni. The buses are a joke; the tram is suspended but constantly heralded as the answer to everything; and trains are often late and packed.

Add to that that you’d be commuting out of Birmingham on one of the busy lines to Solihull; and then getting on another bus home, unless it was walkable from the train station…

It really should be better, for our second city, but it just doesn’t function.

That budget is very sizeable and will buy you a hefty house in York. If you want to find your fellow kind look in South Bank. Don't bother with buses, ride bikes.

Also you say you need good schools because your precious darlings are academic, well just to note - all kids need good schools. Even the ones who live in the North and aren't 'academic'.

West Bridgford in Nottingham?