Redhill & Reigate

All -

I am arriving in London in a few weeks, and will be working in London (specifically on London Bridge St).  I have traded e-mails with personnel in a realty office in London, who have recommended Redhill or Reigate for my situation (myself, wife & 2 kids - need something affordable - e.g., less than 1200 pcm, but still reasonably close to work, and that has good schools.)  Can anyone give some insight into the area - or others that might be similar?  A friend of ours has suggested Cheam (sp?).

Regards

Hi, given the choice of living in Redhill or Reigate I would choose Reigate every time though it is a fair bit more expensive. Both towns are close to the M23/M25 motorways with easy access to Gatwick & Heathrow Airports and there are fast trains to Central London from Redhill.

Rehill is Ok but the centre of Reigate is much the nicer of the two and that is reflected in the price of housing & rents.  Reigate is very popular with young professionals many who commute to London.

Geoff

PS Know the area well as live/work about 7 miles away.               

Where are these areas located? Outside of the greater London area?

Where are these areas located? Outside of the greater London area?

Surrey, within commuting of London.

Reigate is a lovely area. It's about a 20 minute from where we live.

You may also want to consider Crawley, which is a town many London commuters live in. A 3 bedroom house in our area (which is a nicer area of town) rents anywhere from £875 - £950.

Our neighborhood Maidenbower is very close to Three Bridges train station.

Depending on the ages of your children, Crawley may have more to offer in the way of entertainment and activities for them to try.

wat is the general cost/time of commute from these areas mentioned in this post to central london?

wat is the general cost/time of commute from these areas mentioned in this post to central london?

Crawley is 20 miles south of London. You will need to find a website to calculate train costs, which are usually available in daily, weekly, monthly and annual costs for travel.

Crawley's train stations are Ifield, Three Bridges and Crawley.

i'm having a difficult time figuring out how to find the fares on  the site but i'll keep plugging away. was hoping a regular commuter could weigh in with an estimate

About 10 years ago, train fare on an annual ticket from Three Bridges to London Victoria cost £1700. Or £100/week, £250/month.

As far as length, the trip will take anywhere from 1 - 2 hours. Depending on the amount of stops your particular train takes.

This link may help you. You'll need to register to get the information you're looking for.

You can try www.nationalrail.co.uk to look up individual train fares. For instance, return from Crawley is 21.70 per day or 108.50 per 5-day work week and takes approximately 50-60 minutes.

You'll have to contact the individual train companies for season ticket prices (which lhoward was kind enough to providea link to you for).

Train pricing is complex and can very much vary from person to person, even if they are commuting from/to the same station so that's why you may not have received many responses to your questions

Something worth nothing is that season tickets are not always the least expensive or most convenient option in that:
 
1) the prices are calculated to include travel on Saturdays and Sundays, when most commuters won't be travelling, and

2) the price of a yearly, 6-month, or even monthly ticket can be an enormous amount of money to layout at once, though many companies offer loans to their employees to pay for train tickets and then deduct the amounts from their pay cheques.

You would have to plan out what would be the most economically way for you to travel. For instance, I live in London and work north of the city but both the weekly and monthly season tickets are more expensive than buying 5 day returns tickets to cover travelling to work each week. I know that doesn't make sense but it's the way the system works.

The 6-month option was break-even and the yearly ticket would have resulted in some savings but the amount was small and I felt annoyed about advancing the train company what essentially amounts to a rather large interest-free loan without a more significant savings on my part.

Policies vary among the different train companies so its best to do some research before you decide where to live.

All -

Just a quick update.  I ended up getting a place in Merstham.  For those of you who don't know, Merstham is *just* outside the M25, and I think it is a really nice area -- very quiet, and family friendly.  Merstham is about a mile or so north of "downtown" Redhill, and a couple more from Reigate.  I can get on rail direct to London Bridge Station, which takes about a 35 - 40 minute ride - which was about how long it took when I was temporarily in Chelsea to get there on the Tube.  So, I've shelled out for the weekly rail pass each week so far - £41 from Merstham to London Bridge, and used the Tube on a PAYG basis, which has worked out rather well.  The only drawback to Merstham is that you have to go to Redhill for any significant shopping, and as I haven't a car at the moment, that means lugging groceries and other assortments aboard the bus.  A bit of a pain, but all in all, a small price to pay.

Thanks for the input...

The 6-month option was break-even and the yearly ticket would have resulted in some savings but the amount was small and I felt annoyed about advancing the train company what essentially amounts to a rather large interest-free loan without a more significant savings on my part.

I agree, the savings on a yearly ticket is VERY disappointing, especially if you consider all the times you would go without tickets for vacation.  However, I finally broke down and got one for two reasons:

(1) Sick of the long lines at the beginning of the month.  You can avoid these by buying the night before but I always forgot!
(2) I bought my ticket on December 31.  This gave me an additional discount equal to the annual increase in fares, which for SE trains was about 6% this year if I remember correctly.

Having said that, I live in Greenwich so my annual ticket was only £450.  If it was £2000+ I don't think I would have done it unless I took advantage of my company's interest free loan.