Burgess Hill is well connected, mostly by car and by broadband. It has two stations, and hardly anyone takes the train to work. More than a third of workers stay at home. Nearly half drive. The fibre is used more than the timetable.
The town has two stations, Burgess Hill and Wivelsfield, with Hassocks, Haywards Heath and Plumpton a short hop away on the same network. Even so, only about 4% of working residents commute by train. Buses do even worse: about 1% ride one to work, despite 173 bus stops across the town. The infrastructure is there, but the commuters mostly aren't using it.
Here's how people get to work: about 45% drive and about 37% work from home. Walking accounts for about 8% and cycling about 1%. Car ownership matches. Only about 14% of households have no car, and about 44% have two or more. The drive is still the town's commuting infrastructure, and the spare bedroom has become the second most common place of work.
The Department for Transport's journey-time statistics give a sense of distances. They are modelled for the area, not a route from anyone's front door. The nearest town centre is about 9 minutes by car, 12 by bike, 15 by public transport and 21 on foot. A doctor's surgery is about 8 minutes by car, 11 by public transport and 14 on foot. A food shop is about 7 minutes by car or 10 on foot. A hospital is about 16 minutes by car and 33 by public transport, and that gap matters to anyone who doesn't drive. A major employment centre is about 10 minutes by car and 26 by public transport. The car and walking times are stable because the destinations haven't moved. The public transport times date from 2019 and services have been cut since then, so treat them as a best case.
The buses themselves are measured in current departures, not stops on a map. The average stop gets about 19 scheduled buses on a weekday, and about one an hour at peak. About 82% of stops have a weekend service of some kind. A bus an hour at rush hour is fine if your working day happens to fit it. Most working days don't.
Broadband is the strongest part of the picture. Gigabit-capable connections reach about 87% of premises and superfast about 99%, and no premises fall below the legal minimum for a decent service. This is what makes the working-from-home figure possible, and it's why the train is optional for most people.
Mobile coverage is solid: 100% of the area gets 4G or 5G from at least one operator, and about 98% from all of them. Nobody here needs to stand in the garden to send a text.
Road noise is the price of a town organised around the car. Every postcode in Burgess Hill sits near or above 65 decibels, the level at which official noise mapping treats road noise as significant, and the loudest band recorded reaches 75 decibels. Rail noise is a separate source. About 43% of postcodes sit near or above 65 decibels from trains, with the loudest band at 70. Neither figure says how loud a particular bedroom will be. Visit at rush hour, not on a Sunday afternoon.
Electric car owners have less choice. There are 8 public charge points in the area with 14 connectors between them, and none are rapid. Without a rapid unit, charging here means plugging in at home or planning ahead, not topping up while doing the shopping.
For a typical household, getting around Burgess Hill means driving for most things, walking for the doctor and the food shop, and working from home when the job allows it. The train is for the days when being there in person matters more than getting there cheaply.
Burgess Hill is better connected than most towns its size, with excellent broadband carrying the rating and the car doing the rest. Public transport is there, and it's the part of the picture most in need of improvement.