Adequately, as long as you own a car. There is no railway station, and nobody here commutes by train. Just over half drive to work, and about a fifth do the commute by walking from the bedroom to the kitchen. Buses run, but at the hour most people need one they effectively do not. The best-connected thing about this town arrives down a cable.
The rail answer is short. No station, and the census records a train-commuting share of zero, which is as clean a number as this site ever gets to print. Buses are the public transport, such as it is: 30 stops sit within the town, and about 2% of working residents use one to reach work.
How people actually travel tells the real story. Around 54% drive to work, roughly 20% work from home, about 17% walk and around 1% cycle. Car ownership follows the same logic. Roughly 18% of households have no car at all, which for a place this rural is a workable share only because the town centre is compact, and about 35% have two or more, which is the arrangement most families here settle into once the second job turns out to be somewhere else.
The Department for Transport's journey-time statistics put the nearest town centre at about 9 minutes by car, 15 by bicycle, 27 on foot and 27 by public transport. Those are modelled for the area rather than measured from any particular front door, and the public transport figures date from 2019, so treat them more sceptically than the car and walking times. A bus journey that matches the walking time is not a transport option. It is a lift for people who cannot walk 27 minutes.
The same source puts a doctor at about 9 minutes by car, 26 by public transport and 27 on foot. A food store is about 9 minutes by car or 23 on foot. A main employment centre is around 23 minutes driving and 26 by public transport, with the walk modelled at two hours, which is the statistical way of saying do not attempt it. The hospital is the one that should shape decisions: roughly 32 minutes by car and about 73 minutes by public transport. Anyone with a condition requiring regular appointments and no car should read that number twice.
Current service data, rather than the 2019 model, gives the buses their fairest hearing. Stops average about 12 scheduled weekday departures each, and about 97% of them have some weekend service, which is genuinely better than much of rural Devon manages. Then there is the peak hour, where the average stop sees about 0.1 buses. Twelve departures spread across a day is a service. Nothing at eight in the morning is a timetable written for shoppers, not commuters.
Broadband is where the town quietly outperforms. Gigabit-capable connections reach about 86% of premises, superfast covers everything, and no premises fall below the universal service obligation. For remote work this is the whole ballgame, and it explains the one-in-five working from home rather better than any lifestyle theory.
Mobile coverage is similarly unremarkable in the good sense. At least one operator gives fourth or fifth generation coverage across effectively the entire area, and about 96% has it from every operator, so the network on the back of the phone matters less here than the network in the house.
Road noise mapping flags nearly all postcodes as sitting near a modelled road-noise source at or above 65 decibels, the level at which official mapping treats road noise as significant, with the loudest mapped band reaching 75 decibels. That is a proximity measure across the area rather than a reading taken in anyone's back garden, and a stone frontage on a side street will not sound like a number on a map.
Electric charging is early-stage. Three public charge points, 10 connectors between them and one rapid unit. With a single rapid charger serving the town, topping up is something you plan around rather than something you do while buying milk.
Connectivity is the weakest thing about South Molton and the honest reason it stays affordable. Take the car and the fibre and it works fine. Arrive without a car and the town quietly stops functioning around you.