Very well. Purley has stations on the main line to Brighton and London and on a branch line, plus nearly 300 bus stops with frequent services. Gigabit broadband reaches eight in ten homes, and mobile signal is everywhere. About half the working residents barely use any of it. The connections are excellent, and plenty of people here have found they hardly need them.
Purley station is on the main London-to-Brighton line, and Purley Oaks is on the same line a short way north. Reedham (Surrey) is on the Tattenham Corner line, and Kenley and Riddlesdown cover the eastern side, so most homes have a choice of station. At the 2021 Census only 8% of working residents took the train to work and about 5% took the bus. The area has 294 bus stops.
Working from home was the biggest single commute at the 2021 Census, at 49% of working residents. Driving came next at 30%, and only about 3% walked. About 18% of households have no car, and 38% have two or more. Purley grew up around the junction station when the railway arrived, and half its workforce now commutes no further than the house.
The Department for Transport's modelled journey times, which date from 2019, put the nearest town centre about 10 minutes away by car, 18 by public transport, 13 by bike and 24 on foot. That last figure means the town centre is a real walk for the average home, though not one that needs planning.
The same 2019 statistics give average times to everyday destinations. Distances to fixed places don't change, but the bus and train times were measured before services were cut and are the least reliable part. A GP is about 8 minutes by car, 13 by public transport and 14 on foot. A food store is about 12 minutes' walk or 8 minutes' drive. The nearest centre of employment is about 13 minutes by car and 20 by public transport. The hospital is the outlier, at about 24 minutes by car and 49 by public transport, and that is the one trip where living without a car costs real time.
The buses are better than the stop count suggests. Each stop with timetable data gets an average of 278 scheduled departures on a weekday and about 16 buses an hour at peak, and all but one of the 262 timetabled stops has a weekend service. These are current timetable figures, so they are more up to date than the modelled journey times.
Broadband is strong. Gigabit-capable connections reach 80% of premises, superfast reaches 97%, and no postcode falls below the government's minimum guaranteed speed. Mobile is a non-issue too, with 4G or 5G at every postcode and every network present across practically all of them.
Road traffic is the noise to think about. The government's noise mapping treats 65 decibels as the level where road noise becomes significant, and almost every Purley postcode is near a stretch mapped at that level or above, with the loudest band reaching 75 decibels. Rail noise is a separate issue, with about 18% of postcodes near track mapped at 65 decibels or more. Look up the exact address on the noise map, because a house a few doors from a main road and one tucked into a cul-de-sac can sound very different.
The area has 21 public charge points with 44 connectors between them, and 9 of those are rapid units. Nine rapid chargers means a charge can happen during a shop. Without them it would have to be booked like an appointment.
For a typical commuter, Purley offers a choice of trains, a bus every few minutes at peak and broadband good enough to skip the journey. Connectivity is one of the real strengths of living here, and the main thing anyone needs a car for is the hospital.