London advice

[2dancersmum]

My son graduates this month and has been fortunate enough to have secured a good job in his chosen career. Only downside is is that he is to based in offices close to Victoria station. We know how difficult it is to secure accommodation in London and are planning a visit next week to see how we get on.  Question 1 - oyster card - will that be my best method for making multiple tube and bus journeys over a 3 day period. I don't think I am confident enough to drive in London so I will be parking at Hillingdon and tubing in and have a hotel booked. Question 2 - any areas people would recommend we look or avoid? He obviously needs a fairly easy commute to Victoria/Pimlico or even Westminster tube stations.  He is looking at a room in a house share.

Obvious closer areas are Vauxhall, Stockton, Battersea, Brixton - but any parts of these districts best avoided? Or he is better looking to east London - Canada Water. Canary Wharf, etc and coming in on the jubilee line. He is keen to keep his commute under 30 mins.

Any advice appreciated. 

[MAB]

First of all for three days I suggest you use your debit or credit card to get around on public transport, use it the same way as you'd use an oyster card, by placing it on the reader, but remember always to use the same card to avoid a penalty fare.

 

The areas you list are all expensive, a thirty minute commute gives you a wider radius, but bear on mind that many destinations out of Victoria are on dreaded Southern Region, a diabolical excuse for a rail service and totally unreliable.  The District tube line also serves Victoria, so stops along that route can be considered too.

[alison]

I suspect he's going to be hard-pushed to find anything reasonable at 30 minutes' total commute or under.  If the walk from Victoria were excluded from that, he might have rather better luck.  Agree with MAB: at the moment he'd do best to avoid commuting on Southern - unless he lives close enough to Southeastern/South West Trains to be able to use some sort of alternative.  Southern and Southeastern are the ones which travel directly to Victoria: for SWT you need to change at Clapham Junction.  I believe the whole of London commuting these days is done on the basis of concentric zones, so that there's no financial benefit from travelling in from the first station in a zone compared with the last one.

 

If he's actually aiming for nearer to Pimlico rather than Victoria, one option might be to get somewhere on the Victoria-Orpington line, because then you have the alternative of getting the train to Brixton and changing onto the Victoria Line (tube) there, which means you can cut out Victoria completely - no bad thing during the rush hour, I think, though it might be more expensive than getting a rail-only season ticket.  You should also be aware that during the longstanding work on the Victoria tube booking hall rush-hour travel at Victoria can be pretty unpleasant - I try to avoid it wherever possible.

 

Not sure how good an option the Jubilee line would be - or whether it would actually be any cheaper nowadays.

 

You might want to take a look at the Evening Standard website: it has a column in its property section on Wednesdays called The Accidental Landlord, and I think she said something the other week about landlords struggling rather more than they used to to find tenants, so all may not be lost!

[Pas de Quatre]

I agree with Alison, 30 minutes is very optimistic, 40 - 45 might be more likely.  Looking to the East is a good idea, the Jubilee line is a possibility.  Also areas such as Lewisham, Deptford, Greenwich and beyond have local trains lines going into Waterloo East, where you can walk, get buses or tube lines on to Central London.

 

[2dancersmum]

Thanks for the help and advice so far. Some things for us to think about for sure. His office is literally 2 mins walk from Victoria station but to be honest I think he is looking at where he can travel to by tube or bus, not necessarily the train. We're finding quite a few places within his price range but we know rooms go literally overnight so none of them will still be available when we visit London and not knowing any of the areas its difficult to know what to expect.

So currently looking at district line, Victoria and jubilee lines. Fingers crossed we get him sorted!

[Geoff]

I would try turning your question round the other way: going only 30 minutes out is unlikely to win you much of a discount, so why not try and live super near and put the saved commute money towards the accommodation?

 

Are you by any chance a Catholic family? Just a sideways thought, as your son is (a) young, (b) only wants one room: the area behind Victoria Street, near Westminster Cathedral, is an odd one, full of flats, houses etc controlled directly or indirectly by the Catholic Church. Then again, being the lodger of a retired priest or whatever flat/house-share opportunities could come his way round there might not be the sort of life he has in mind! But I thought I would pass on the local knowledge. 

 

Similarly bits of Pimlico are cheapish, and the same thing applies re walking to work  Forget trying this way of looking at the problem near Westminster though: can't imagine this area has anything affordable.

Edited June 3, 2017 by Geoff

[Nicola H]

On 6/3/2017 at 14:32, MAB said:

First of all for three days I suggest you use your debit or credit card to get around on public transport, use it the same way as you'd use an oyster card, by placing it on the reader, but remember always to use the same card to avoid a penalty fare.

 

The areas you list are all expensive, a thirty minute commute gives you a wider radius, but bear on mind that many destinations out of Victoria are on dreaded Southern Region, a diabolical excuse for a rail service and totally unreliable.  The District tube line also serves Victoria, so stops along that route can be considered too.

 debit / credit cards   is fine if you have contactless and are heappy to get  them out  of your pocket / purse / wallet  each time ... 

a word of caution - ' visitor' oyster cards can;t be registered on the  oyster portal  so rely on  beign  topped up at  ticket machines / places who can do  top ups , where a standard oyster can be registered and  top-up through the webportal ( and if the card is lost the any credit isn;t )

 

[LinMM]

I go up to London every week Tuesday/ Wednesday and these days just use my debit card....and yes it would have to be the contactless variety.

i used to have a pay as you go Oyster card before I was going up to London so much and found it a pain to remember how much was on it and places like Highbury where I used to top it up without getting in some enormous queue as at Victoria closed their ticket offices. I was very pleased when you could use your debit card at the same rate as an Oyster card.

Maybe if I lived in London though and travelled around every day I would go for the registered Oyster card as there probably is a slight risk getting your debit card out etc though I usually zip it in either my bag or jacket between stations.

(I'm okay on the buses as get free travel there)  

The jubilee line is very fast much faster usually than the District Line but not sure it's that much cheaper over in that bit of London although Stratford could be an option to look at with all the building going on there.....supposedly with some cheaper housing etc.

The thing about London is you can name almost any area and there will be such a mixture of renting prices ranging from basically unaffordable( unless you are on a starting salary of at least £50,000 or more a year) to rooms shared in houses where you may pay a monthly rent of £1,500 to £1800 shared by two to three people( if have a bedroom each say) 

Good Luck with it all....London is a great place to live for young people.

 

 

[RuthE]

Hi.  South of the river is still generally easier to find affordable rented accommodation than north, though I agree with others that 30min is somewhat optimistic.  I too work in the Victoria area, and I live only 3 miles away in Camberwell, but because my neighbourhood is (very well-) served by buses rather than trains, it takes me 45min on a very good day to get in by public transport, or an hour to walk.

 

He might just be lucky with a swift commute - and avoid the dreaded Southern Railway - if he looks in Lewisham, or perhaps a little further out along the Bexleyheath line.  There's a direct train service on that line into Victoria, and reasonably affordable shared accommodation definitely still exists in the area.

[2dancersmum]

Thanks to everyone who responded with advice. Pleased to say that we were successful and did manage to find accommodation for him on budget and it should take him less than 30-45 mins to get to work. It actually came down to a close call between 2 places  to be honest I never expected him to have a choice, especially after getting a phone call ten minutes before one viewing that both rooms had just gone!