Your thoughts on housing for ACS Cobham and Central London Office

[user1499029977]

Hello,

I am moving to London mid-Aug 2017 with my younger son who will be entering his 4th grade this fall. We have applied to ACS Cobham. My office is in Trafalgar Square (Waterloo stop) and I was looking for your input on what town would be a good option for us to live in - Richmond, Wimbledon, Esher, Kingston by Thames?

Many thanks!

Why not Cobham? Any of the places you mention means a trip in the opposite direction to your journey to work! Trains from Cobham to Waterloo are frequent and relatively quick.

Walton on Thames? Hersham ? Oxshott? Or Esher

Are there ACS buses from all those towns? Wimbledon and Richmond would be much longer a bus ride than Kingston, Esher, Cobham etc so I'd rule those out. For you Esher or Walton probably has the better train service so I'd look there.

Esher trains definitely better than Cobham. ACS run a lot of school buses so you will easily find something that suits you. The better train service is from Surbiton.

Thanks a lot for your responses!

Yes there are bus pick-up/drop services offered by ACS Cobham for all these places, including Kensington as well but like user titchy said, it will be a long ride for my son... I wasn't sure if there was 'reverse commute' situation from Wimbledon to Cobham that would have helped my son's bus ride...
So it appears Esher, Walton....maybe Kingston?

Reverse commuting from Wimbledon - once you're on the A3 it's a breeze. Getting to the A3 on the other hand can take forever at school run time!

Kingston would work, although there's still traffic, and the train service isn't as frequent.

Esher or Walton would be my suggestions, particularly Esher.

Thanks a lot Titchy! That's very helpful! I am in London next week trying to figure out a few things like housing, school fees, setting up bank accounts etc... I will definitely focus on Esher :)

Surbiton has better train service than Kingston. I think it's 20 min to Waterloo on the fast train. Same with Richmond.
Kingston has longer journey no fast trains. Also getting on to A3 is longer from Kingston as roads are very busy at school run times.

Go for Esher. There is a school shuttle bus that picks up from Esher station and is not too expensive. (DD1 has just graduated from ACS Cobham.)

Thank you for all the great insights! I will make a decision this week and keep you posted :)

If you live in the area near the school, I think there is a really great community among the expat parents, who seem lovely and really ready to help new arrivals settle in.

An update - we went to both TASIS and ACS Cobham and my kids really liked TASIS so we may end up going to TASIS. This would mean Weighbridge for me probably.... and a longer commute to London :(

Weybridge commute is not that bad! We didn't look at TASIS, but one of DD2's friends went there and loved it. I don't think there's much to choose between the two fees wise (both eye watering).

Yep my eyes are still watering :) Thanks for the help - we are moving forward with TASIS, a rental property in Weybridge and looking for a live-in nanny for now as I will be a single parent for sometime

For TASIS (and ACS Egham, incidentally), your closest expat-rich community is Virginia Water (5 minutes drive from Thorpe). The rail journey to Waterloo from there is around 40 minutes.