Where does the London commuter belt end?

[Indigo Soup]

It doesn't directly indicate the 'London commuter belt', and the research is from 2011, but the ONS view of the rail travel to work areas is interesting:

Item Replacement

There are oddities of course, like the southern tip of South Uist being in the London area, but the large areas are indicative. This puts the London commuter belt as broadly southeast of a line from the Wash to Lyme Regis.

 

[bspahh]

This map shows where you can get to in 60 minutes from the Francis Crick Institute next to St Pancras from commutetimemap.com

 

[Transilien]

This puts the London commuter belt as broadly southeast of a line from the Wash to Lyme Regis.

That is a large area! I wonder how it compares with other capital cities.

 

[Thebaz]

My old work colleague used to commute from Tamworth! Unsurprisingly he got fed up with doing that.

 

[BazingaTribe]

And I thought Peterborough to Reading by car as done by someone working for my mum at her school was epic.

Mind you, Charles Kingsley of Water Babies fame did a weekly commute from where he worked in Cambridge to his parish in Hampshire where he took services as the vicar. Some of the jokes in Upstart Crow wore a little thin, but if Kingsley could do it in such conditions, I wonder what other historical figures did the same thing?

 

[J-2739]

I don't. Milton Keynes demonstrates it - it's symbiotic with London, London doesn't suck the economic life from it as Corbyn suggests, not at all - indeed its proximity to London is probably a key reason why it succeeded and Skelmersdale, Peterlee etc arguably didn't.

I'm all for investment in the Northern cities' transport networks, to be fair, but connectivity to the capital is also important.

This is also what happened to Cambridge, as @Magdalia alluded to earlier; regular non-stop express services to London King's Cross has brought both cities in synergy, and made Cambridge very attractive for the tech industry (if the university is not enough).

Though I can't imagine the attraction of it as a London commuter town, given it's extortionate housing prices and living costs.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

This map shows where you can get to in 60 minutes from the Francis Crick Institute next to St Pancras from commutetimemap.com

View attachment 167914

Isn't somewhere like Stevenage do-able within 60 minutes if starting off from nearby to St. Pancras?

 

[bspahh]

Isn't somewhere like Stevenage do-able within 60 minutes if starting off from nearby to St. Pancras?

I don't know what assumptions commutetimemap.com makes for connection times.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

I don't know what assumptions commutetimemap.com makes for connection times.

Indeed. But just how long to walk from the Francis Crick institute across the road into St. Pancras station? Maybe 5-10 minutes to make your way down to Platform 'B'? Then the service frequency to Stevenage is every 15 mins. Half an hour journey time? That's still within 1 hour!

 

[Bletchleyite]

Indeed. But just how long to walk from the Francis Crick institute across the road into St. Pancras station? Maybe 5-10 minutes to make your way down to Platform 'B'? Then the service frequency to Stevenage is every 15 mins. Half an hour journey time? That's still within 1 hour!

You could do MKC to the Francis Crick (and anywhere from Tring southwards ish) in an hour easily, even if you crawled backwards on your hands and knees between Euston and there. It's barely 10 minutes' walk from Euston.

 

[urbophile]

It doesn't directly indicate the 'London commuter belt', and the research is from 2011, but the ONS view of the rail travel to work areas is interesting:

Item Replacement

There are oddities of course, like the southern tip of South Uist being in the London area, but the large areas are indicative. This puts the London commuter belt as broadly southeast of a line from the Wash to Lyme Regis.

Is it really the case that most commuters in the Wirral work in Birkenhead and not Liverpool? Or have I misunderstood the map?

 

[Indigo Soup]

That is a large area! I wonder how it compares with other capital cities.

It's not strictly the London area, but is an area containing London, relatively few of whose residents commute to somewhere outside that area. That will also include people who live in Dorchester but get the train to Bournemouth... because most people in Bournemouth use the train to get to London.

Is it really the case that most commuters in the Wirral work in Birkenhead and not Liverpool? Or have I misunderstood the map?

For the 'all commuters' map, that's probably correct. Looking at the alternatives under Tab 4, I'm guessing a lot of people in the Wirral get local buses to work, rather than driving or taking the train.

 

[ThameslinkUser]

Has some gaps

More than "some" considering the southern tip is Haywards Heath lol. People commuting from Haywards Heath will typically struggle to get a seat on most peak trains. Hell I often have to stand from Hove.

 

[Ghostbus]

What motivates people to live so far away from their jobs?

Open spaces, less noise, less crime, clean air, cheaper house prices, friendly neighbours, the ability to use a car for routine weekend activites. Quality of life issues.

Basically, it means you don't have to live in London.

The map above is totally wrong. Maidstone is and and ways was a commuter town. Perhaps the ideal commuter town, because house prices weren't remotely as high as other more obvious commuter towns nearer London, and it didn't lose that local character (borderline Darling Buds country) that the other towns to the north, west and even south of London probably did.

These are the same reasons why peope are now "commuting" from as far away as North Yorkshire a couple of times a week, taking advantage of WFH and staying overnight with friends or in an AirBnB.

 

[Farigiraf]

More than "some" considering the southern tip is Haywards Heath lol. People commuting from Haywards Heath will typically struggle to get a seat on most peak trains. Hell I often have to stand from Hove.

The full version on the website also includes Burgess Hill and Brighton (& Hove). It was quite difficult to screenshot the full image on my device.
This being a Speculative thread, it would be nice if Thameslink restored their peak Littlehampton-London (not sure if they extended to Bedford) services, with the class 700s having more capacity and being designed more like commuter trains.

 

[ThameslinkUser]

with the class 700s having more capacity and being designed more like commuter trains.

I could not think of anything worse.

 

[Bald Rick]

This map shows where you can get to in 60 minutes from the Francis Crick Institute next to St Pancras from commutetimemap.com

View attachment 167914

That map is rubbish.

According to it, I’m not 60 minutes from the FCI. I do it every day in under 60 mins, (53 to be precise) and that includes a 25-30 minute walk to the station! If I cycled or drove to the station (which everyone else near me does), it would be 35 minutes.

 

[Meerkat]

It doesn't directly indicate the 'London commuter belt', and the research is from 2011, but the ONS view of the rail travel to work areas is interesting:

Item Replacement

There are oddities of course, like the southern tip of South Uist being in the London area, but the large areas are indicative. This puts the London commuter belt as broadly southeast of a line from the Wash to Lyme Regis.

AIUI I don’t think it can be read quite like that. If you have it set for railway TTWA it will tell you that from that area 75% of the rail commuters live and work within that area. So that “London” area is really a London and South East area.
So if Reading gets pulled in to the ’London’ area anywhere where the majority of rail commuters commute to Reading would also get pulled in.

PS Another reason for long commutes is when people get moved/promoted into London HQ roles but have too settled a family life to move closer.
A lot of well paid jobs don’t have big non-London markets - if the big life insurer closes its HQ near your home then your nearest comparable professional role might be some distance away, possibly making it just as awkward as commuting to London for the vast job market there (It’s a big reason it’s hard to move high level jobs from the South East to the anywhere else other than the biggest cities.)

 

[D6130]

No mention so far of South-East Hampshire/South-West Surrey. Places on the Portsmouth Direct Line, such as Godalming, Haslemere, Petersfield and adjacent smaller stations, have - and have had for years - a very heavy commuter traffic into London.

 

[Ken H]

Last long daily rail commute I did was S Warwickshire to near Hanger Lane on the M40. Used Evesham - Paddington then Bakerloo to Stonebridge Pk. Then found Warwick Parkway to Wembley Stadium as easoer and cheaper. That would have been around 2003.
It would be too much for me now. But i am past state pension age.

 

[Mike99]

I would of thought Ipswich and Manningtree if you had the resolve to do it would be tempting for a commuter to travel in and out each day. For several years of the 1990's I did Hastings to London every day many others from Battle and onwards to High Brooms and Tonbridge

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Since the 1970s, work has become more decentralised at the technical/management level, and work can be in multiple directions.
So 5-day commuting to an office desk, very likely London, became instead a more random life of possibly a different destination every day, with transport choices accordingly.
I travelled extensively in my career, but never did a 5-day commute to London or anywhere, so it mattered little where I lived (and the company valued flexibility over a permanent base).
I might do 2 day trips to London, or one with hotel stops, with intermediate trips to Manchester, Stevenage, Reading etc.
Maybe things are a little less chaotic now, with travel costs under the cosh from HQ, and Teams and WFH have arrived.
I used to think the River Severn was about the London commuter boundary when I lived in Malvern (west of the river, with Birmingham a bigger pull locally).
Certainly there were 100-mile commuters from the Cotswolds, Cheltenham, Gloucester etc, including many well-heeled professional types.

 

[Abpj17]

It's blurry. I have a broad professional network as a knowledge base.

There is certainly spokes out across key semi-fast lines. Plenty of commuters from Bedford, Milton Keynes, Cambridge, Brighton etc.

There are also a core of longer distance commuters - more than you imagine. That's gone down since the pandemic (or rather travelling 5 days a week has). I've known non-trivial numbers who commute into London from Bristol, Bournemouth, Gloucester etc. These were 5 days a week pre-pandemic.

Once you reach a certain level of income, it was also not unheard of even pre-pandemic for people to rent a flat during the week and spend three or four days in London before return somewhere else for the weekend. In my field, this tended to happen for late career roles in London for those who had worked in Edinburgh. But have known to happen from e.g. Manchester, Huddersfield, Liverpool.

Post pandemic of course, people are working less days a week in London. I know people who have moved to Scotland or Newcastle etc. and stay in hotels a few days a month in London, working from home the rest.

Lower housing costs, proximity to the countryside, family roots are among the highest motivations, as well as a stint in London (especially for HQ jobs, or a different company) while your base remains somewhere outside the south east.

 

[[.n]]

I think you can get a reasonable idea from the Network SouthEast area though possibly minus a few of the more distant extensions, e.g. I doubt anyone daily commutes from Weymouth or Exeter (if any do from Exeter they won't be using former NSE services).

There used to be (pre-covid) a handful of people who commuted from Weymouth/Dorchester several times a week and some that did that daily. Admittedly there weren't many!

 

[zero]

Once you reach a certain level of income, it was also not unheard of even pre-pandemic for people to rent a flat during the week and spend three or four days in London before return somewhere else for the weekend. In my field, this tended to happen for late career roles in London for those who had worked in Edinburgh. But have known to happen from e.g. Manchester, Huddersfield, Liverpool.

Post pandemic of course, people are working less days a week in London. I know people who have moved to Scotland or Newcastle etc. and stay in hotels a few days a month in London, working from home the rest.

Where does the London commuter belt end? It's just about feasible to commute from Hong Kong weekly. I know someone who did that.

Initially he would depart HK on Sunday night and arrive for work in London on Monday morning. Then leave the UK on Thursday evening to spend Friday evening & weekend in HK. He could not cope with this after a few months so the schedule was changed to 2 weeks at in the UK office and 1 week at home in HK (plus email/videoconferencing).

At one point, a colleague from the UK office was needed for a year-long project in the HK office, so they were both commuting in opposite directions. Unfortunately their skill set was not suitable to swap roles.

To sustain a commute by long-haul flight, the job needs to be sufficiently high value that it's worth it for the employer to pay the travel and accommodation instead of remote working or recruiting someone else. There needs to be frequency/reliability/quality of flights, and the lifestyle needs to be attractive enough to not want to temporarily or permanently relocate. I suspect pre-covid only Hong Kong, Singapore, UAE, New York and California would qualify.

Any ongoing arrangements must have abruptly ceased in 2020. I don't know if they would have resumed post-covid.

Especially before Brexit, short-haul commutes to or from mainland Europe (including by Eurostar) may have been more common perhaps even on a daily basis. On a flight I met a cabin crew member who said she lived near Lisbon airport and commuted to Heathrow to work a BA long-haul rota.

 

[Bald Rick]

On a flight I met a cabin crew member who said she lived near Lisbon airport and commuted to Heathrow to work a BA long-haul rota.

I know of a BA long haul pilot, based LHR, who lives in Sydney.

 

[The Ham]

Or, what motivates people to work so far from their homes?

Of course, that's easy: a lot of good jobs are in London, and moving the whole family to an expensive city is unpalatable. Hybrid working makes the commute easier. If HS2 ever gets fully built, we'll probably see people commuting from Liverpool/Manchester/Leeds to London, and those cities lose more good jobs.

I'm not so sure, I've only ever worked in prime commuting areas, save the reason that there's lots of good jobs here is that you can be in London for key meetings, but you can employ support staff and rent offices far more easily and for a lower cost than in London.

It's fairly normal that you only need a few key staff to attend meetings (and then not all the time) and so staff like it as they have their travel to London paid for when it's needed, but only have short journeys to get to work.

If you were to ever need to have a meeting in London where your company was hosting there's lot of serviced offices or function rooms which can be used.

The overall cost is lower, so you can charge less, which means your can win business that that in London can't die to their higher costs.

Anyway, even if there's a brain drain to London during the day, a lot of their pay will be spent locally.

 

[Ken H]

...

If you were to ever need to have a meeting in London where your company was hosting there's lot of serviced offices or function rooms which can be used.

...

I have done a few meetings in cafes in motorway services. Seems to be a popular pastime as you see groups of people round a table all with laptops. Just the cost of coffee to pay for.

 

[35B]

My wife and I moved from Orpington to Grantham 20 years ago. The trade off, influenced by family factors, was easy.

House prices in Lincolnshire were much lower, meaning that the significant additional season ticket costs would be affordable - for context, we purchased a 4 bed detached house for the same price we sold our 2 bed terrace. For equal distances from Charing Cross and Kings Cross, the additional journey time was about 20-30 minutes. However, that was a trade from a crush loaded Networker to a pre-bookable GNER train. Frequencies at the key times were approximately the same, so less waiting around.

Even now, with remote working much better established, the trains between 6:30 and 7:30 load well from Grantham, and it is absolutely part of the commuter belt.

 

[Magdalia]

What motivates people to live so far away from their jobs?

Or, what motivates people to work so far from their homes?

It all comes down to economics. Commuting happens when places have many more jobs than they have homes for the workers to live in. It has been an issue in London for a very long time, in Cambridge it is only a recent development.

That is primarily caused by planning restrictions, and the green belt in particular.

Inside the green belt demand for homes exceeds supply so the price goes up. This creates a trade off between the increased cost of homes near to work against the money and time costs of commuting. Every commuter implicitly balances that trade off according to their own circumstances.

This is all overlaid by a life cycle aspect. In my commuting days most people starting careers in London began by living close to work which often meant paying high rents for dodgy flats with dodgy landlords in dodgy area. After a while lots moved out to commuterland when they bought their first home. That would often be in places where commuting was only just starting to grow, because the house prices were barely affected by the London premium. Once people make that decision most of them put down roots and are then stuck with the consequences for the rest of their working career.

Two things are disrupting this model. One is the change in working patterns, which were coming anyway but were accelerated by the covid pandemic. The other is that the people near the start of their careers are finding it increasingly difficult to buy their own home anywhere. If the country can get back to building 300k houses per year that may change again, and the impact on commuting patterns will be determined by where the new homes are built.