Stonehouse is middling for connections: it has the road links, the broadband and a station of its own, and almost nobody uses the station. More than half of working residents drive to work. Nearly three in ten work from home. Hardly anyone commutes by train or bus. Whatever the map suggests, Stonehouse gets around by car and by broadband.
Stonehouse Rail Station is in the town, with Stroud (Glos) Rail Station and Cam & Dursley Rail Station within reach, yet at the 2021 census under 1% of working residents commuted by train. There are 81 bus stops in and around the town, and about 1% of residents went to work by bus. The town has its own station and still commutes like a village that doesn't have one.
The census commute mix shows how people actually get to work. Driving accounted for about 55% and working from home for about 29%, with walking at about 8% and cycling at about 2%. About 15% of households have no car, and about 48% have two or more. The trains run past a town that has mostly decided to drive or stay at home.
The Department for Transport's modelled journey times, which date from 2019, put the nearest town centre 15 minutes away by car, 27 by public transport, 28 by bike and 77 on foot. That 77-minute walk is the most telling figure here: nobody walks to the town centre for a pint of milk and back.
The same modelled statistics put a GP 8 minutes away by car, 13 by public transport and 19 on foot, and a food store 7 minutes by car or 10 on foot. A hospital is 29 minutes by car and 51 by public transport, and the nearest large employment site is 15 minutes by car or 14 by public transport. All of these are averages for the area as a whole, and while the distances have not changed since 2019, the bus services the public transport times assume may well have, which makes those times the least reliable of the set. Taking the 2019 model at its word, the bus beat the car to work by a minute, the kind of result that rarely makes it out of a model onto the actual roads.
The bus figures that are current are less flattering. A stop here averages about 24 departures on a weekday and about one bus an hour at peak, though about 94% of stops have some weekend service. Each of those is a scheduled departure, not a separate route. An hourly bus is fine as long as nobody needs to be anywhere at a particular time.
Broadband is the strongest part of the picture: gigabit-capable connections reach about 85% of premises and superfast about 99%, and no premises fall below the universal service minimum. Every postcode gets mobile coverage from at least one network, and about 94% from all of them. Nearly three in ten residents working from home is the clearest sign that the broadband here does its job.
Noise mapping puts every postcode in Stonehouse near or above the 65-decibel level at which official road-noise mapping starts treating traffic as significant, with the loudest band reaching 75 decibels. Rail noise is a separate source, and every postcode is near or above 65 decibels on that measure too, peaking at 70. Look up the house on the government's noise maps for both road and rail, because a town with a motorway on one side and a railway through the middle is quieter in some streets than others.
There are three public charge points, with five connectors between them, and one of those connectors is rapid. With only one rapid connector in town, most electric car owners here will be charging on their own driveway.
Stonehouse is middling for connections: good roads and good broadband make up for a train service the town treats as optional and buses that run about once an hour.