Well by car and broadband, and badly by almost everything else. More than half of working residents work from home. Almost nobody commutes by train. Most households run two cars or more. The most-used commuting route in Windlesham is the upstairs landing.
The village has no station of its own. The railway comes to it through neighbours: Sunningdale, Bagshot, Longcross, Ascot and Virginia Water are all on the list of nearby stations. At the 2021 Census, about 2% of working residents took the train to work. Buses are thinner still. There are 213 bus stops in and around the area, and fewer than 1% of workers used a bus to get to work.
How people here actually get to work is mostly by not going. About 56% of working residents worked from home at the 2021 Census, and about 36% drove. Walking took about 2%, and cycling barely registers. Car ownership follows. Only about 5% of households have no car, and about 62% have two or more. Two cars on the drive isn't a luxury here. It's how the household gets through the day.
The Department for Transport's journey-time statistics give modelled times for the area as a whole, not a route from any particular front door. They put the nearest town centre 11 minutes away by car, 18 by bike, 21 by public transport and 38 on foot. That 38-minute walk means nobody pops into town on foot.
The same statistics cover everyday destinations. A GP is 8 minutes by car, 16 by public transport and 23 on foot. A hospital is 17 minutes by car and about 50 by public transport. A food store is 8 minutes by car or 17 on foot. The nearest cluster of jobs is 5 minutes by car and 17 by public transport. The car and walking times are based on fixed distances and hold up well. The public transport figures date from 2019, and services have been cut since, so treat them as the best case rather than a promise. A 50-minute bus journey to hospital is the figure to note if anyone in the household doesn't drive.
The bus timetables are current, unlike the modelled times. On a weekday, the average stop sees about 27 departures across the whole day and about one and a half buses in the peak hour. About 62% of stops have any service at the weekend, which leaves nearly four in ten with nothing on Saturday or Sunday. You can plan your week around a bus that comes that rarely, but you can't rely on it without planning.
Broadband is the part of the network that works hardest. Gigabit-capable connections reach 85% of premises, and superfast reaches 97%. For a village where most workers never leave the house for the office, that matters more than any timetable. Mobile coverage is just as good: effectively every postcode gets 4G or 5G from at least one operator, and practically all get it from every operator.
Road noise is the cost of living next to a major road. About 98% of postcodes sit near or above 65 decibels on official noise mapping, the level at which road noise is treated as significant, and the loudest band present reaches 75 decibels. Rail noise doesn't reach that threshold anywhere. How loud any one house is depends on its position and its windows, so listen at a viewing rather than trusting the map.
Electric vehicle charging is limited. There are four public charge points with nine connectors between them, and none of them are rapid chargers. You'll charge at home, because there's nowhere quick to charge while doing something else.
For a typical household, getting about means driving for the shopping, the GP and the school run, driving to a neighbouring station for the occasional office day, and relying on the router for everything else. The car does the daily work, and the station matters mainly for the days you need to be in the office.
Windlesham is well connected for a family with two cars and fast broadband, which describes most of the households here. For anyone who doesn't drive, the lack of trains and the thin bus service leave it poorly connected.