Horam is well connected if you own a car. Four in ten working residents commute from the spare room. Half drive. Almost nobody takes the train. Take the car keys away and it's a different village.
Rail is the missing piece. There's no station in the village, and about 1% of working residents in the Horam area commute by train. Anyone who does has to get to a station first, such as Crowborough or Stonegate, which usually means driving there. The area has 92 bus stops, but under 1% of working residents take the bus to work. The stops exist. The commuters don't use them.
The commute mix at the last census tells the real story. About 52% of working residents drove to work and about 40% worked from home, and those two groups account for most of the working population. Walking managed about 3% and cycling about 1%. Car ownership follows. About 63% of households have two or more cars, and only about 6% have none. In Horam, a second car is the local public transport.
The Department for Transport's journey-time statistics are modelled for the area as a whole, not routed from any particular front door, and the public transport figures date from 2019, when services may have been better than they are now. On that basis, the nearest town centre was about 13 minutes away by car, 24 by bike, 40 by public transport and 62 on foot. An hour's walk to the shops isn't a walk. It's a hike.
Everyday errands follow the same pattern. A GP surgery was about 12 minutes by car, 34 by public transport and 51 on foot. A hospital was about 33 minutes by car and 86 by public transport, so anyone without a car should know that number before they need it. A food store was about 10 minutes by car and 40 on foot. For getting to work, the model puts a centre of employment at about 60 minutes by car and 42 by public transport, a quirk of how it picks destinations rather than a reason to sell the car.
The bus figures are current, unlike the journey times. Stops average about 29 scheduled departures on a weekday and about 2 in the peak hour, and about 87% of stops have some weekend service. That's a service rather than a timetable curiosity. But two buses in the rush hour is a bus you plan your morning around, not one you catch.
Broadband is better than the lanes suggest. Superfast broadband reaches about 96% of premises and gigabit about 60%, so the four in ten working from home aren't doing it on a prayer. If you want gigabit, confirm it for the exact address before you offer, because it's a coin flip weighted in your favour, not a certainty.
Mobile coverage is in good shape. At least one operator reaches 100% of the area with 4G or 5G, and all operators together reach about 97%, so your network is unlikely to be the one that doesn't work.
Road noise is limited. About 7% of postcodes sit near or above 65 decibels, the level at which official noise mapping treats road noise as significant, and the loudest band recorded is 70 decibels. Rail noise doesn't register at all, which is one way to find out a village has no railway. Most homes won't hear the traffic. A few near the main road will.
Electric vehicle charging is sparse. The area has 1 public charge point with 4 connectors, and none of them are rapid. Charging here happens on your own drive overnight, not in a car park while you do the shopping.
Horam's connections are middling: a car-and-fibre arrangement that works well while you have both, and gets thin the moment you don't.