Where to live in Kent?

[DrMoriarty]

Evening all,

Daughter dearest (with whom I am well pleased) is starting a new job next month in Wigmore, near Gillingham, and has to set about looking for a place to stay, ideally somewhere between Gillingham and London and reasonably well served by public transport.

It's a part of England I'm not at all familiar with, and I'm wondering if anyone on AAM has any tips to pass on — she's 24 and wants to be near London, but not spend hours travelling to work Mon-Fri either.

TIA for any pointers.

 

[Ember]

Hi DrMoriarty,
I have two daughters, working/studying in Gillingham for the last 5 years. They have recently decided move houses and we searched several areas in the region. The nearby towns are Gillingham, Chatham, Rochester and Strood, collectively known as the Medway towns. They narrowed their search to St. Mary’s Island and The Historic Dockyard areas. We viewed several properties in these areas and they were very suitable.
The trains are quite good and regular, but travelling by train is very time consuming and there are regular point failures, cancellations and delays. My Daughter lived in Eltham (near London) for a year and travelled to and from Gillingham, she said that she would never do it again because of all the wasted time and problems travelling. Travelling by car is a bit quicker, but the roads are very busy and there are regular traffic jams. The train to London takes an hour and usually runs every half hour. My daughters have decided to live as near as possible to their workplace and travel to London when necessary rather than always having to travel to work.
Rents in the Medway area are lower than in areas nearer to London. As you probably already know, rents in London are astronomical. A modern, very nice large two bedroom apartment can be rented in a good area in Medway for about 800 pounds per month.

I hope that this helps.

 

[DrMoriarty]

My daughters have decided to live as near as possible to their workplace and travel to London when necessary rather than always having to travel to work.

Thanks, Ember, this confirms my own hunch. Needless to say, she's young and has just had 5 years of hard work in College, and naturally wants to be "in" London, but I think she's sensible enough to see the logic of this. She'll be working Mon-Fri, 9-5 and it would make far more sense to be living near work and travelling into London for her evenings/weekend outings, rather than spending 2-3 hours of every working day commuting and having all the extra living costs on top.

Google Street View is a wonderful thing! I spent several hours last night in the company of it and the likes of Zoopla/Rightmove, etc. and it confirmed what you say about the likes of Rochester and Strood vs. Chatham/Gillingham, parts of which look a bit grim by comparison.

 

[dereko1969]

Given the very expensive commuter train service in and around London she'd need to keep a very close eye on commuting costs - prices due to go up 6.5% next year on top of the already most expensive commuter fares in the EU.