Better by broadband than by bus. Superfast broadband reaches nearly every door. Nearly half of households run two cars or more. The only railway in town is a heritage line for day-trippers. Tenterden connects to the wider world through the router and to everything else through the car keys.
Rail barely figures. The town's own station closed in 1954 and half of it reopened in 1974 as the terminus of a heritage railway, which is a lovely day out and not a commute. About 1% of working residents go to work by train. Buses are just as rarely used for the journey to work: about 1% commute by bus, even though the area has 43 bus stops. The stops are there. Commuters have decided they are for other people.
The 2021 Census shows how Tenterden really gets to work. About 51% drive and about 32% work from home. About 9% walk, and cycling is about 1%. About 45% of households have two cars or more, and only about 14% have none. In a town like this, a second car is standard equipment, like a boiler.
The Department for Transport's journey-time statistics are modelled for the area as a whole rather than for any particular front door, and they date from 2019. They put the nearest town centre about 9 minutes away by car, 14 by bike, 17 by public transport and 30 on foot. By car, a doctor's surgery is about 10 minutes away and a food store about 7. On foot, the surgery is about 31 minutes and the food store about 10, so the shop is walkable and the doctor is a proper outing. The nearest hospital is about 36 minutes by car and about 68 by public transport. The nearest large employment centre is about 18 minutes by car and about 32 by public transport. Those public transport times come from 2019, and services have been cut since, so treat them with more caution than the car and walk times. An hour-plus bus trip to hospital is the figure to remember if anyone in the house doesn't drive.
The buses that do run are current figures, not modelled ones. The average stop sees about 33 scheduled departures on a weekday and about 2 an hour at peak, and about 97% of stops get some weekend service. That is a usable service. It isn't one to plan a working day around, and the commuting figures show nobody does.
Broadband is where Tenterden catches up. Gigabit-capable connections reach about 74% of premises, and superfast about 99%. Mobile coverage is sound too: modern mobile data coverage from at least one operator reaches 100% of the area, and from every operator about 98%. That's why a third of the town can call the spare room a workplace.
Road noise is more of an issue than the countryside suggests. About 58% of postcodes sit near or above 65 decibels of road noise, the level at which official noise mapping treats traffic as significant, and the loudest band recorded reaches 75 decibels. Rail noise doesn't register at all, since the trains that do run are heritage stock. None of that says how loud a particular bedroom will be. It does say the main roads through town carry enough traffic to be worth listening for on a viewing.
For electric cars, the area has 4 public charge points with 6 connectors between them, and none of them are rapid. Charging here happens overnight at home and gets planned in advance. It doesn't happen in the ten minutes you're in the shop.
A commute from Tenterden means a car, or a job that comes down the broadband line. Buyers counting on the bus to carry a working week will find it can't.
Tenterden is middling on connections. The broadband and phone signal hold up the grade, and the lack of any commuter rail drags it down.