Kennington is well wired and only middling for getting around. Most people work from home or drive. Hardly anyone takes the train. The buses run often, and the town centre is a short ride away and a long walk.
Three stations are within reach, at Radley, Culham and Oxford, and at the 2021 Census about 1% of Kennington's working residents commuted by train. The village has 18 bus stops, and about 4% of workers took the bus to work. Neither figure suggests a commuter village. Rail is the option people mention more than they use.
Kennington mostly commutes by laptop and car. At the 2021 Census, about 42% of working residents worked from home and 38% drove. About 7% cycled and 5% walked. Only about 14% of households had no car, and 43% had two or more. The village stretches along a narrow strip of land, and the driveways were built for the cars that came with it.
The Department for Transport's modelled journey times, from 2019, put the nearest town centre about 15 minutes away by car, 24 by public transport, 23 by bike and 50 on foot. The walk time tells you most of what you need. Fifty minutes means the town centre is a drive, a bus or a bike ride, and walking there is a hobby.
Broadband is the village's strong suit. Gigabit-capable connections reach about 87% of premises, ultrafast the same share, and superfast about 99%. Every mobile network reaches about 95% of the area, and some signal reaches all of it. With that much fibre in the ground, the four in ten who work from home were always going to stay there.
For a typical working week, the result is a lot of home working, short drives and the occasional bus. The commute that does happen tends to be short and local.
For everyday trips, the same Department for Transport statistics put a GP about 13 minutes away by car, 22 by public transport and 40 on foot. A hospital is about 23 minutes by car and 48 by public transport. A food store is about 16 minutes' walk or 8 minutes' drive. The nearest cluster of jobs is about 17 minutes by car and 15 by public transport. These are modelled averages for the area, and the distances won't change. The public transport times date from 2019, and some services have been cut since, so read them as the most generous of the set. On those 2019 figures, the bus beat the car to the jobs, which buses rarely get to say.
The current bus timetables are kinder than the 2019 model would suggest. Kennington's stops average about 50 scheduled departures each on a weekday, with around three buses in the peak hour, and every one of the 18 stops has a weekend service. That's a working service and more than a token stop. Fifty departures is an average across the village, so check the timetable at the stop nearest the house you want.
Road noise reaches every postcode. All of Kennington's postcodes are near road noise of 65 decibels or more, the level at which official noise mapping counts it as significant, and the loudest band recorded is 75 decibels and above. Rail noise is a separate source. About 86% of postcodes are near the same 65-decibel threshold for trains, again peaking at 75 decibels. Neither figure tells you what a particular bedroom sounds like with the window shut.
Kennington's connections are middling overall. Excellent broadband and a decent bus service make up for a railway the village mostly ignores and a town centre too far to walk to.