The clue is in the name - I am reluctantly living in London, and sadly need to stay connected to London for work for the next while. But the pollution is affecting me badly, and I want to get out.
I don't really want to stay in the UK, but we are tied for a while, so are really trying to figure out where we could live with London still in reach - I have memories that Harrogate is a nice place. Am I right?
I am lucky that I can do two or three days a week from home, so I don't need to be in London or the office all the time.
Where else should I be thinking of? The whole Surrey thing is deeply unappealing 🙁
York maybe, depending on your level of masochism.
Harrogate not really.
Harrogate is not ideally placed - you'd have to drive or catch another train to reach the mainline.
Would you be travelling down the night before or in the morning to get there in reasonable time? If it's the former, you have more options. If the latter, I'd forget anything north of Peterborough.
Provided you don’t mind being up early, say 6am, and back late, say 7-8pm, then you’ll be fine - I’ve been doing it for years from Huddersfield with 2 days at home. If you are paying for your own tickets try to book ahead to get first class - that way you can usefully get some work done on the journey..
Cotswolds? Cotswold line into London from Oxford/Charlbury/Morton/Evesham in about 1h10-50 (in increasing order of the places listed) or Banbury and Chiltern mainline into London in similar time? Just going off what I know (where I live) but lots of locals commute to London daily
No.
I occasionally do it and it’ll kill you and ruin your family.
If you can, travel down and stay in hotels during the week then home on Thursday and WFH Friday.
HTHs
Harrogate will be on the mainline soon. It already is, but only 1 return service a day. More are coming
There's a direct train now from Harrogate to London - journey time is about 2h 45mins.
There's a direct train from Harrogate to KingsX but it's a long journey...No way I could do it every day.
The other option is to live in a nice village 10-15mins from a mainline train station and drive/commuter train to the mainline station. Lots of options for this in Yorkshire but still a 2h journey to KingsX
My boss does it, Harrogate to Bloomsbury. He's only there one or two days a week though. He has to travel a lot, Northampton, Birmingham, Selkirk (where I am) plus various clients all over the place and Harrogate isn't too badly placed. He stays over in London when he's down there. If he did more than a couple of days there I suspect he would live closer though.
Northallerton would be my pick if you really wanted to take on those sorts of journeys. It's directly on the mainline but I think it's 2hrs 15 or so from KC.
1 direct train each way at present suggests it would be a no go ( imho )
Later this year there will be more but even then it will make a hell of a long day - approx 6 + hours travel every day would kill me.
If you really want to live up in North Yorkshire, then York has much better connections and in a lot of ways would be a better choice, if you can put up with the influx of visitors.
Also look at Thirsk and Northallerton, believe it or not both have better direct connections to London at present than Harrogate
Why are you overlooking Doncaster?
Did a few years of London 2 days a week from Ilkley. It's not a long term option really but doable, I now work in Leeds.
Where else should I be thinking of?
What are your criteria?
You don't like the idea of Surrey but were considering commuting hundreds of miles to live in the most Surrey-like bit of Yorkshire.
Why are you overlooking Doncaster?
🙂
Grantham is worth a look-in, especially if you are a Thatcher fan.
Harrogate isn’t exactly on the east coast main line so even if they do get more direct trains it’s not exactly direct.
I know people who commute in to London from Harrogate and it’s horrible. ie driving to the east coast main line.
Take a pay cut and get a better work/life balance ?
Not much wrong with other places up and down the line, Retford, Newark, Peterborough to get away from London smog, prices and stabbiness. Without knowing what he wants from a home town though, we'll never hit the target. I quite like east Kent, Margate, Ramsgate and Deal, which have a slower train, but handy for hopping the channel if that's your thing. If it was affecting my health though, I'd stop going in to London for any job.
Where else should I be thinking of? The whole Surrey thing is deeply unappealing 🙁
It depends on so many things: your tolerance of long-ish train journeys, the sort of place you want to live - Harrogate has a weird 'home counties spa town' transplanted to North Yorkshire vibe going on, which you'll either like or not.
If it were me, as someone who likes hills and bikes and crags, I'd be looking at the Sheffield side of the Peak maybe. Or perhaps down towards Bristol/Bath, but it depends on your tolerance of long train journeys and whether you're going to overnight it in London or do it as a daily sort of thing.
But presumably if your main drive is simply to avoid London pollution, you could live a lot closer to the smoke than any of those places.
Direct train to/from Kings Cross Mon to Fri to/from Skipton @ 6.56am and return 6.03pm. Rather you than me.
As above, Harrogate is the same with one direct train too and from Kings Cross per day 7.33am and 6.33pm return.
In both cases the alternatives are just one change at Leeds, which is a fairly compact station.
Not much wrong with other places up and down the line, Retford, Newark, Peterborough
I'd say there's a quite a lot wrong with Peterboghorror, but I guess that's pretty subjective. Folk I've known who've been committed to Peterborough for work reasons have tended to move out towards Stamford, which - Google says - can be less than 90 minutes from London by train. And then, I guess, there's Cambridge if you're that way inclined and like flatness.
Maybe speak to HR if your organisation has any offices based outside of London?
Maybe Derby or Sheffield, for Peak riding?
Actually just read the OP again and realised you haven't yet moved. Given that is the case I would say why make life harder than it needs to be? If you are determined to live in Yorkshire (and lets face it who wouldn't be!) then somewhere closer to York will be significantly better for commuting to London. It has far more services to choose from and a much better journey time. There are also some very nice villages round there...
York is under 2 hrs to KX but you'd need to live in cycle distance, 'driving' in York is a misnomer and not going to change anytime soon. There are plans for a big re-development round the station that includes residential, timescale unclear though.
Oh and Harrogate is a bit anti-cycling, big chunk of locals hated the Tour de France.
Prevous stop is Doncaster, hmm. Next as mentioned is Northallerton which has designs on a mini Harrogate. And getting to the station would be a lot easier.
What about Retford? Also on the mainline but never got off to have a gander.
Not Yorkshire but how about Macclesfield? Plenty of trains to Euston and not far from Manchester.
Howden? Great little village in East Yorkshire. Right in the middle of York, Leeds, Hull, Doncaster and Sheffield. Handy for motorway network to get to all of these and further afield.
For some strange reason it has a large minster bigger than some cities, and direct trains in 2hr20 to Kings Cross on the Hull main line.
Is a bit flat though.
You wouldn't want to do it every day, it would exhaust you for the weekends. You could start by just going one way per day. Have you got showers/changing rooms and somewhere safe to leave the bike overnight. Definitely need to have a full spare set of clothes (bike and work) at the office for mishaps, rain etc.
pollution is affecting me badly
Why chase the money? If your health is bad what is the point of earning the big bucks?
If you are looking at moving anywhere that sounds like you have no ties.
Put your health first, take a pay cut, downsize, drive a smaller car, take less holidays, keep your bike a few more years, shop at lidl and aldi and buy a house up north and find a new job.
Life's too short to live and work in London if its making you ill. Good luck
The air in London is bad and I wouldn't commute from Harrogate it will stress you out. Depends where in London you re trying to get to, if near Waterloo I would go for the south coast. Grantham is a good shout too.
Macc would be a good location - i.e. live within walking distance of the Station. My sister does Stockport - London most weeks (works from home) but has a taxi ride to the station. Living near Stockport station isn't fab, so Macc is the next main station - good riding too.
Macc is a great shout for this sort of thing. Sub 2 hrs to Euston and a v nice area to live.
Was at the train station today as it goes and there's a big Joy Division photo on the footbridge. Didn't see the Macc Lads monument but must be round there somewhere.
big Joy Division photo on the footbridge.
Joy Division songs for Northern Rail commuters, perhaps?
Something Must Break...or maybe Failures
Crikey all this talk of trains from Harrogate to London and no one has mentioned the 250 day fare for standard on a peak service [edit 1500pcm for a season ticket] (before 9am/4pm to 7pm iirc) travel or the fact that the local service is Northern and regularly just doesn't appear.
If you're working "office hours" the best you'll manage by train is 9 ish arrival in kx. Then the joy of trying to pick up the tube in Central London at rush hour. You'll probably not get a bike on the train to pedal from kx as there are only 2 spots London bound.
I'd say no is the honest answer, Sheffield isn't too bad for traveling down but realistically there's a reason we're all forgotten by government up here and it's because it's too far from London to be of practical interest. You'll end up living in London a few days a week any how so either save the hassle and stay where you are or move jobs and house if you want to be in Yorkshire.
Yes it's a daft idea.
The fact that the OP hasn't returned suggests that he or she realises this now.
Crikey all this talk of trains from Harrogate to London and no one has mentioned the 250 day fare for standard on a peak service [edit 1500pcm for a season ticket] (before 9am/4pm to 7pm iirc)
Depends how much you earn I suppose.
I know someone who commutes to BP Head Office in London from up North once or twice a week, they wanted twice, he negotiated once, it generally averages somewhere inbetween. otherwise he can work from home or a regional office. I think the return train fare is £200, but he earns £800 a day, so average weekly train fare of approx £300 is not particularly relevant when you're being paid £4000pw
What do you do when the Trains fail? Quite often on the local radio something has happened on the East coast main line. My son got the 0600 train from York to Grantham last week, got there at 1200.
Generally the Electric cables fail or some numpty decides to play chicken and looses.
I’ve just been informed by the missus that the glitterati are moving to Suffolk. She should know.
I'd live in York before Harrogate, speaking as someone who works in Harrogate.
My brother in law wanted to move out of London and ended up in Bishops Stortford. Seems a nice place and worth a look. His commute to the centre of London is no longer than when he lived in Muswell Hill.
the pollution is affecting me badly, and I want to get out.
Then get out. No point in still being there half the time.
People seem to be talking of time to KX but he could be anothe 30min to work after transfers walking etc. Find a cheap hotel for 2 nights a week
I did it from Sheffield on and off for about 10 years. Was ok until I got near 40 and frankly had enough of it, I was burnt out. If you can deal with a couple of hours each way on the train then great but my experience tells me that that exhaustion creeps up really slowly on you and then gets you in one hit.
Having said that, if I needed to do it again I’d not move from Sheffield. Love this city.
Think differently. Plenty of the mid life self help books out their speak sense about adding 3-5 hrs of miserable commute time to a working day. Think what else you could be doing with 15-25hrs a week spare.
For nearly 3 years I travelled by car to Huntingdon, them train into Kings cross and walked to the office. The area is ok and train takes ~1 hour.
While the job was great, I hated the time I lost (and I don't have any kids to worry about), weekends felt very short and when trains go wrong, which they do a lot, it sucks.
Back on a 16 mile round trip daily these days by bike and it's a much better life, plus with some controlled eating in 2.5 stone lighter!
It depends on how much you need to show your face and who pays for your travel. I do a day or two a week in London most weeks, with a half hour train journey into Leeds to get there. Done this for years and it's no biggie. My line management and the team I manage are all down there, and all seem pretty happy with this arrangement...
I rarely do a full day in the office, but if I leave the house bang on 6:30 I can make a 10:00 meeting pretty reliably. 7:30 for 11:00 in the office is easier. It was my choice to move my job out of London (for kids' schools and outdoor stuff reasons, panned out better for the latter than the former fwiw) so I don't resent this at all. They're lucky to have me, basically.