House hunting made easier

A few years ago when I was moving house for the umpteenth time I remember thinking wouldn't it be wonderful if there was a map based around travel times so that you could shortlist possible areas to live that would combine the quickest door-to-door times with house prices that fell within your budget. It didn't exist. There was an experimental project being conducted by Cambridge University and a web site that had some amazing computer generated images of commuter patterns but it hadn't reached a stage that gave any useful results. And there was no possibility of tapping in one's own requirements.

Fast forward to 2008 and things have definitely moved on. Once again the family is upping sticks and heading for same. The arrival of my son has forced us to consider all sorts of issues, not least how much time it takes to get from work to pick him up from nursery.

To the rescue comes commutefrom a brilliant web site that marries average house prices, journey times, starting points and destinations. Pick any combination of the four and it will quickly rearrange the London commuter map to show you the options. Brilliant!