Relocating from Australia - where to live?

[RelocatingMumof2]

Relocating from Perth to UK with jobs in London and Reading with two young children (one nearly primary age, other will be daycare). Looking for advice on where to live so we can commute in around 1 hour to work but still feel like we live in a village with good amenities.

Just seen this thread.
I would check out Elizabeth line.
Maidenhead
Marlow
Cookham

Lots of people in these areas do your kind of commutes.

Just be aware of the secondary school situation - Bucks and Slough have grammars (Slough is super selective) which may or may not be appealing.

Maidenhead fast train gets into Paddington in 20 mins - my DH takes this train and I do too sometimes.
Maidenhead to Reading is about 15 mins.

My DBIL (who works in property strategy) told us about Maidenhead. He said start searching there and branch out. That's how we found our current home /village which we love.

I live in Wokingham and highly recommend. It's a lovely community. Lots of great schools and your budget will be plenty. Drive to Twyford to catch the Elizabeth line (although car park does get busy so early start required). It's then 25-30 mins to paddington and short hop on Elizabeth line to Bond Street for Mayfair. For the person commuting to Reading it's an easy drive or a short train journey of 15 minutes max from Wokingham station.

I can't really help as I'm in the north east, but as someone who visited Aus last year and have not stopped thinking about it since, do you mind me asking why you've moving back? No worries if not :) We could apply for visas but I really don't want to be so far apart from family x

Moving back for a job and the added benefit of being close to family with two young's kids. I want them to have more time with family. Otherwise we would not be moving back, we love Australia and have made sure we have citizenship so we can eventually head back here.
I would highly recommend moving over if it's something you're interested in but being far away from family is hard.

Thank you. Hope all works out for you to the UK move and the eventual move back x