Everything in Sheerness is close to everything else in Sheerness, and the rest of the world is further away. The shop, the doctor and the town centre are all a short walk. Hardly anyone takes the train to work. The buses mostly stop running at the weekend. Everything else depends on a car, and a third of households don't own one.
Sheerness-on-Sea is the town's station and the end of its line, with Queenborough the next nearest. Only about 5% of working residents commute by train. Buses do even less of it: there are 52 stops in the area, but about 1% of people get to work by bus. The rail line connects the island to the mainland, but only a small share of residents use it for the daily commute.
Driving is how most of Sheerness gets to work, at about 54%. Next come walking at about 15% and working from home at about 13%. Cycling manages about 3%. About a third of households have no car and about a quarter have two or more. The town is split between households for whom everything is a short drive and households for whom anything beyond walking distance is out of reach.
The Department for Transport's journey-time statistics are modelled for the area, not measured from any one front door, and the figures below come from its 2019 edition. The nearest town centre is about 8 minutes by car, 11 by public transport, 10 by bike and 16 on foot. A GP is about 7 minutes by car, 8 by public transport and 13 on foot. A food store is about 9 minutes' walk or 7 by car. Employment is about 3 minutes away by car but 46 by public transport. That gap sums up the bus network better than a timetable does. The hospital is about 50 minutes by car and about 70 by public transport. That's the figure to weigh if anyone in the household needs regular appointments. Public transport times have had years of service cuts since 2019, so treat them with more caution than the car and walking times.
The bus figures are current. Across the stops with service data, each stop averages about 24 scheduled departures on a weekday and about two an hour at peak. Only about 52% of stops have any weekend service at all. A bus every half hour on a Tuesday is a service. A stop with nothing on a Sunday is just a sign on a pole.
Broadband is where Sheerness does better than its transport. Gigabit-capable broadband reaches about 72% of premises, ultrafast about 79% and superfast about 97%. No premises fall below the universal service minimum. Mobile coverage is similar: 4G or 5G from at least one operator covers 100% of the area, and from all operators about 98%. Working from home here doesn't come with a signal problem.
Road noise reaches almost every postcode. More than 99% are near or above 65 decibels, the level at which official noise mapping counts road traffic as significant, and the loudest band recorded reaches 75 decibels. Rail noise doesn't register as a separate problem, with no postcodes near that threshold. How loud any one house is depends on the house, so listen at a viewing, not only on the map.
There are 2 public charge points in the area with 7 connectors between them, and none are rapid chargers. Charging an electric car here is something you plan around, not something you do while doing the shopping.
On connectivity, Sheerness is middling. It's excellent for anyone whose life fits within walking distance or runs over broadband, and hard work for anyone who has to get off the island without a car.