Cholsey is well connected for a village, as long as you have a car or work from home. It has its own railway station, and almost nobody uses it to commute. More than half of households run two cars or more. Nearly everyone can get superfast broadband, and half can get gigabit. The trains are mostly something residents hear going past.
Cholsey Rail Station is in the village, on the line between Reading and Didcot, with Didcot Parkway, Goring & Streatley and Culham among the other stations nearby. At the 2021 census about 2% of working residents in the Cholsey area went to work by train and about 1% by bus, even though there are 294 bus stops across the wider area. On paper there is plenty of public transport, but very few people here use it to get to work.
At the census about 47% of working residents worked from home and about 41% drove. Walking accounted for about 4% and cycling for about 1%. Only about 8% of households had no car, and about 56% had two or more. The most common commute in Cholsey was to work from home, and most of those who did leave the house drove.
The Department for Transport's modelled journey-time statistics put the nearest town centre about 11 minutes away by car, about 18 by bike and about 25 by public transport. On foot it takes about 42 minutes. Walking to the shops is a long trip from here, though there is a pub along the way.
Superfast broadband reaches about 94% of premises, ultrafast about 53% and gigabit about 50%. No premises fall below the legal minimum. Mobile coverage is almost complete, with 4G or 5G from at least one network everywhere and from every network across about 99% of the area.
The same Department for Transport statistics, modelled averages for the whole area based on 2019 services, put a GP about 11 minutes away by car, about 23 by public transport and about 40 on foot. A hospital is about 36 minutes by car and about 74 by public transport. A food store is about 24 minutes' walk or about 9 minutes by car, and the nearest large centre of employment is about 33 minutes by car and about 20 by public transport. The distances will not have changed, but some bus services have been cut since 2019, so the public transport times are the least reliable of the set. For anyone without a car, a hospital appointment takes most of the morning.
Current timetables give the average stop about 40 departures on a weekday and between two and three an hour at peak. About 66% of stops have any service at the weekend. That is a usable daytime service for getting around locally, and much thinner at weekends.
Every postcode in the area is close to or above 65 decibels of road noise, the level at which official noise mapping treats it as significant, with the loudest band reaching 75 decibels. Rail is a separate source, and about 62% of postcodes are near or above the same threshold for train noise, again up to 75 decibels. In Cholsey the main line is something most residents hear and few of them use. A viewing that coincides with a few passing trains will show more about rail noise than the map does.
There are 8 public charge points in the area with 13 connectors between them, 2 of them rapid. With only two rapid chargers, charging an electric car is something to plan around.
Cholsey is better connected than most villages, mainly because of its broadband and its roads, and the bus and the train play a smaller part than the timetables suggest.