Market Towns - Commutable to LHR

[SighthoundSusie]

Ideally looking for Market Towns upto 1-2hours away from Heathrow.

Also require 4/5 bed property, good side gardens, utility and garage plus primary/secondary schools.

Would like all the usual amenities but especially local parks and, National Trust, type spots too.

Where springs to mind? I'm drawing blanks.

Most of north Hampshire is around 1 hour from Heathrow. Look at places like Fleet, Alton, Alresford, Petersfield or even into Surrey - Farnham.
Depends on your budget though!

M4 corridor out as far as Reading and M3
corridor down as far as Basingstoke, and everywhere in between. Loads of lovely places to choose from.

I suspect those areas will be out of our budget.

Will certainly research those so thank you.

Newbury Hungerford Just of the M4

Horsham or Crawley, West Sussex

The Chilterns has much of that. Only thing is we have the grammar school system still which could be a good or a bad thing.

Avoid anywhere requiring M25 east of A3 at the moment, the Wisley junction makes traffic flow very slow and will not finish until 2025 earliest. I'd look West along A30, M4, M40 areas - maybe Hungerford, Marlow, Maidenhead, Marlborough, Bicester, Banbury etc

@SighthoundSusie What is your budget? Mid Bucks is around 40
mins from Heathrow so Aylesbury, Princes Risborough or Wendover might suit. Or Tring in Herts. Loader do in the Chilterns and good access to London.

Oxfordshire area, eg Thame is not far and is a lovely town.

Slightly further out, look at Buckingham (not on a motorway) or Bicester (that’s expanding a lot!). Brackley in Northamptonshire has decent motorway links M40 then M25. Also agree Hungerford just off the M4 is great. Swindon is a lot cheaper though! Banbury might be worth a look. Again, the M40 means it’s quite quick to Heathrow.

Many towns have new housing which is cheaper than village houses or older houses in the towns. I really like Thame and Hungerford but your budget will matter.

What's the rough cost for a 4bed in Hungerford/Newbury?

Is Brackley a nice area?

Thank you. Will do as wasn't aware.

What's your budget?

Prices in Marlow are way more than Bicester or Banbury! Budget will matter. @SighthoundSusie Yes, Brackley is very pleasant. Has newer estates but not as sprawling as Bicester. What is your budget? This matters for recommendations.

@SighthoundSusie

A lot depends on how predictable you need the travel timing to be, how frequent the commute and of course budget.

I can't come up with specific towns but on a good day two hours from LHR can get you far north as somewhere like Stamford, or in the south well beyond Crawley/Brighton......OTOH on a bad day that gets problematic and can be quite stressful if you have to be at the airport by a specific time.

Going westwards is probably the most predictable and I know when I worked at LHR we had people commuting (though usually not daily) in under two hours from places like Cheltenham, the Bristol/Bath area and some from south Wales.

Modern 4 bed detached in Brackley is £450,000 plus. Buckingham is more expensive but not by much. £500k gets you 2 beds in Marlow or a semi in a decent enough area in High Wycombe. Thame - a 3 bed semi. So budget matters a lot. The further away from London, prices are more reasonable where there’s choice of newer estates. Aylesbury has lots of newer builds and has 4 bed detached at under £1/2m too. Wendover won’t.

Marlow would be a stretch as we ideally would be reaching for 4bed min.

Budget wise maybe £400k?

I think Hungerford etc is going to be over budget unfortunately.

Banbury? Wellingborough? £400k sadly doesn't go far in the south east.

Swindon? Bracknell or outskirts of... Lots at lhr live there...

Wiltshire? The towns of Marlborough and Devizes are lovely Wiltshire market towns and are around 1.5 hours drive to Heathrow. They are probably slightly cheaper than Hungerford being a bit further from London and not having railway stations

My parents live in a village near Marlborough and two out of the six or seven houses on their street are occupied by the families of pilots who work at Heathrow - both long haul so maybe not commuting every day but its an easy drive A4-M4. One of the neighbours, a BA captain with a fancy Porsche, reckons he can do it just over an hour when he is going for a 6am flight.

@lucyfield And these pilots live in 4 bed detached houses costing £400,000?

Thats just too little money for better towns and villages. Banbury is definitely within reach with your budget though. Bicester - probably a bigger semi.

What's Welllngborough like?

Will add Swindon and Marlborough to the list to research. Thank you.

Hard to get a feel of the locations because local Facebook Groups always give off the negatives.

I’m looking at west of London at the moment ~ £400000 would get you a newish 3 bed semi in Bicester one of the cheaper areas. For 4 beds, plus garage plus gardens you’re looking at 500,000 plus in most of Oxfordshire and Bucks.

Banbury? Swindon? You’re going to have to push that search area to 1~2 hours I think, look at villages or larger towns as the market towns are very desirable.

This does have a knock on with schools as well.

@SighthoundSusie Wellkngborough? Nowhere near as nice as Banbury or even Bicester. Countryside in Oxfordshire is much nicer!