Kempston is well connected if you drive or work online, and only middling if you need a train. Half of commuters drive. A quarter work from home. Almost nobody takes the train. The broadband is the best-connected thing in town.
The nearest railway is Bedford Rail Station, with its inter-city services, plus Bedford St Johns. Kempston Hardwick Rail Station has the town's name on it, yet only about 1% of working residents commute by train at all. Buses do slightly better. Kempston has 93 bus stops, and about 2% of working residents ride a bus to work.
At the 2021 census, about 51% of working residents drove to work and 25% worked from home. About 9% walked and 4% cycled. Around 18% of households have no car, and 40% have two or more. Kempston is a town where the car does the commuting and the laptop handles the rest.
The Department for Transport's modelled journey times from 2019 put the nearest town centre about 15 minutes away by car and 22 by public transport. By bike it takes 19 minutes, and on foot 42. That walk time sums it up: most people here drive into town, and anyone who promises to walk it regularly is making a New Year's resolution.
The same Department for Transport figures, modelled area averages from 2019, put a GP about 7 minutes away by car and 9 on foot or by public transport. A food store is about 5 minutes' walk or 7 by car. A hospital is around 11 minutes by car and 19 by public transport, and a large employment centre about 11 by car or 10 by public transport. The distances won't have changed, but bus services have had years to be cut since 2019, so the public transport times are the shakiest of the lot.
The current bus timetables look more encouraging. Across the 46 stops with timetable data, the average stop sees about 50 departures on a weekday, roughly three an hour at peak, and 89% have some weekend service. Those figures count departures, so a busy stop on one route counts the same as a quiet stop on several, but a stop here usually means a working bus service.
About 94% of premises can get gigabit broadband, 95% ultrafast and 99% superfast, and mobile coverage reaches essentially every postcode on every network. For the quarter of residents working from home, that is the connection that matters most.
Noise comes with all that road. Every postcode in Kempston is close to or above 65 decibels of road noise, the level at which official noise mapping treats it as significant, and the loudest band reaches 75 decibels. Rail noise is a separate source: about 68% of postcodes are near the same threshold from the railway, also topping out at 75 decibels. The government's noise maps are free to check against the exact house, and they show which roads and railway lines are making the noise.
There are 7 public charge points in the area, with 9 connectors between them, and 2 of those are rapid. With only two rapid units, charging an electric car here is something you plan ahead, and you won't fit it into the time it takes to do the weekly shop.
Kempston is better connected than its train numbers suggest, as long as you have a car and a fibre line. Anyone whose working week depends on a platform will have to go into Bedford for one.