Blackfen is well connected, and buses and broadband do more of the work than trains. Its stations are on the edges, and so are the train commuters. Seven or eight buses an hour call at a typical stop at peak. Nine in ten homes can get gigabit broadband. For the four in ten who work from home, the commute is a router.
Trains run from Sidcup to the south and Welling to the north, with Falconwood, Albany Park and New Eltham also within reach. At the 2021 census, 9% of working residents took the train to work. There are 112 bus stops in and around Blackfen, but only 4% of workers commuted by bus. Plenty of buses, and a much smaller number of people on them to get to work.
Working from home was the most common way of getting to work, at 39%, just ahead of driving at 36%. Walking accounted for about 5%, and cycling for 1%. About 17% of households have no car, and 37% have two or more. More of Blackfen commuted to the kitchen table than to the driver's seat, though the car still won anything that involved leaving the house.
The Department for Transport's modelled journey times date from 2019, and services have changed since, which makes the public transport figures the least reliable of the set. On those numbers, the nearest town centre is about 8 minutes away by car, 10 by bike, 13 by public transport and 16 on foot. A GP is about 7 minutes by car, 11 by public transport and 12 on foot. A food store is about 7 minutes on foot and 6 by car, so the weekly shop is barely a journey. The nearest hospital is about 19 minutes by car and 41 by public transport. The nearest employment centre is about 14 minutes by car and 16 by public transport, and about 5 by bike. The bike beats the car to work by a wide margin, and only 1% of commuters have noticed.
The bus figures are current. The 98 stops with timetable data average about 135 departures each on a weekday, around seven or eight an hour at peak, and 99% of them have some service at weekends. Those are departures, which is not the same thing as routes, but at that frequency nobody needs a timetable.
Gigabit broadband reaches 93% of premises, ultrafast 94%, and superfast covers all of them. Every postcode gets 4G or 5G from every operator. For a suburb where so many people work from home, that matters more than the station.
Official noise mapping treats 65 decibels as the level where road noise becomes significant, and every one of Blackfen's postcodes is at or near that line. The loudest band mapped reaches 75 decibels. Rail noise is a separate source, and about 17% of postcodes are near the 65-decibel line for trains, with the loudest band at 70. How loud a particular house is depends on which way it faces. Stand in the back garden at rush hour as well as the front room, because the noise map works by postcode and you will be living in one house.
There are 5 public charge points in and around Blackfen, with 11 connectors between them, and 2 of them are rapid. With only two rapid units, charging is something you plan around, and a driveway with its own charger is worth asking about.
Connectivity is a real strength in Blackfen, carried by frequent buses and near-universal fibre. The trains are a short ride away, and most days nobody needs one.