Short commute to London - suggestions please!

[basementbear]

That's it really! Living close to Victoria now and need to move out due to lack of space etc. Closest train station to DH would be Cannon Street or Victoria (works on the district line). Want to be close to good primaries and secondaries of course, and not too far out into the country - don't want to have to drive everywhere. Don't want more than a 30-40minute commute - any ideas please??

If you want a 30 - 40 minute commute, you are probably looking at places within the M25. We are just inside the M25 and it is 35 minutes to Waterloo.

Sutton? Cheam? Somewhere around there - trains straight into Victoria in 20 minutes or so.

Or is that still too close?

Didn't realise Sutton was so close - will have to check it out. My family is in kent so I naturally assumed I'd be going in that direction, but within the M25 is ok. Hadn't thought of Waterloo either!

Bromley South is 19mins to Victoria.

Maybe it's a bit further - I have friends there, we don't live there ourselves so I could be gettign confused. But certainly, a slow train takes about 40 minutes from London Bridge so a fast one from Victoria must be significantly faster.

If DH works on district line, I'd keep trying to find somewhere into victoria - going to waterloo then doing those changes can be annoying.

Petts Wood and Orpington have fast trains into Charing Cross, Cannon Street, London Bridge, Waterloo East and (less fast) to Victoria. Great schools. V handy if your family is in Kent.

We are in the same boat although dh works in H'smith so I guess ideally a commute into Paddington would work best. But I'm sure Victoria wouldn't be out of the question. I shall watch with interest! I have heard that Oxted is v nice with good schools and I think that's not a bad commute into Victoria in case you're interested.

The Dartford line goes into Charing Cross/Cannon Street via London Bridge...Dartford area has grammar schools as does Bexley borough, commute is about 20-30 mins into London depending where on the line you are, some areas nicer than others.

Going into Victoria, Petts Wood, Bickley & Bromley are lovely areas (Bromley shops are fab!) but properties are much more expensive.....

i work at cannon street.
walk to city thameslink - ludgate hill 10 min walk. and get train to st albans 22 mins.
would recommend!!!
good schools. not too far out.

I was going to recommend St Albans too. Nice area with some good schools. We periodically consider moving there ourselves...

Oxted is 40 mins to Victoria, and about 30 to London Bridge (seems to be more LB trains in commuter hours). Oxted v. good secondary school, primaries a bit moxed, but depends what you want from a primary (we're at a generally regarded as a less good one, but it suits us very well)

Another vote for Bromley or Petts Wood, Orpington as suggested above. Mainly because from all those areas I think you can get trains to Victoria or London Bridge/Waterloo East/Cannon Street/Charing Cross, although from Bromley there are separate stations about a 15 minute walk apart depending on which of the lines you want.

The commute is relatively short from all the stations and, whilst I know this is tempting fate, the trains seem to be quite reliable at the moment.

Thanks for all your replies, lots of places I hadn't thought of! The appeal of Kent is that it's nearer to my parents. I'm not sure if grammar schools are a good thing or not - on the one hand I am in favour as I went to one myself but on the other hand the DCs are 5 and 7 and seem completely average at the mo' so it's impossible to tell if they'd make the grade when the time comes! Often it seems that you get good grammar schools but the alternatives for those who don't pass are not so good.

Comps as well as grammars have a good rep round here too (Darrick Wood and Bishop Justus are the ones I can think of). Don't think there are any really awful ones I'm aware of.

Most of the comps in Bromley borough are reasonable. Including Ravenswood for boys, and Ravensbourne which is mixed has recently had outstanding ofsted and has very good value added scores.

oxted is wonderful. has trains to london bridge or victoria- take 30-35 mins. great schools (the 3 infant schools we were choosing between were all ofsted outstanding and the secondary school has one of the best results in surrey).