Billericay is well connected on paper, but most people here get about by car or don't commute at all. It has a station, plenty of buses and fast broadband almost everywhere. Nearly half of workers stayed home on census day, and most of the rest drove. The town has a railway, and it mostly uses a car.
Billericay Rail Station is in the town itself, with Shenfield Rail Station a short way down the line for anyone who wants more trains. Census 2021 found about 6% of working residents taking the train to work. There are 124 bus stops in and around the town, and about 1% of workers commuted by bus. The railway reached Billericay in 1889 and turned it into a commuter town, so the station shaped the place even if few people use it to get to work now.
The census captured a town split between the home office and the driveway. About 45% of workers worked mainly from home and about 38% drove. About 5% walked, and cycling barely registered. About 11% of households have no car, and about 47% run two or more. Bikes are rare, and three-car drives are not.
The Department for Transport's journey-time statistics are modelled averages for the area, and their public transport figures date from 2019, before later service cuts, so they are the least reliable part of the set. On those figures, the nearest town centre is about 10 minutes by car, 12 by bike, 15 by public transport and 22 on foot. A GP is about 7 minutes by car, 10 by public transport and 12 on foot, and a food shop is about 8 minutes' walk. The nearest hospital is about 22 minutes by car and 48 by public transport. Employment centres are about 18 minutes by car or public transport, and 7 by bike. On foot, the same trip takes about an hour and a half.
The current bus timetables are stronger than the 1% bus commute suggests. The typical stop sees about 50 scheduled departures on a weekday, about three in the peak hour, and about 80% of stops have some service at weekends. Billericay has buses. It just doesn't take them to work.
Gigabit broadband reaches about 88% of premises, and superfast broadband reaches all of them, with no premises below the universal service minimum. Every postcode gets a 4G or 5G signal from every network. Look up the exact address for gigabit availability, because about 12% of premises are without it and a home office depends on it.
Every postcode in Billericay is near or above 65 decibels of road noise, the level at which official noise mapping treats road noise as significant, and the loudest band recorded is 75 decibels and above. Rail noise is a separate source, and about 39% of postcodes are near or above the same threshold, with a top band of 70 decibels. The town was founded on the crossroads at Sun Corner, and the traffic has kept coming ever since.
The area has one public electric charge point with one connector, and none of it is rapid. Charging is something you do at home, overnight. Nearly half the households here run two cars or more, and the public network is a single plug.
Billericay is better connected than most of its residents need, with a station, frequent buses and broadband to match a home office. It is a car-and-laptop town with a railway as backup, and that works well enough for most people who live here.