i have a friend who is pondering a job offer in the twickenham/richmond region, and thought you people would be the best to ask! what places, towns, villages etc in this region would you reccommend? he will have to move if he gets offered the job and he wants to try and do a bit of research about where would be the better options to look at living.

Depends on his budget - there's a huge range from rubbing shoulders with Mick Jagger on Richmond Hill to moving in next to the Young Offenders in Feltham, but there aren't really dodgy areas around here. He should consider whether he's prepared to drive to work, which would otherwise limit him to the train routes or a shortish bus journey. Otherwise, remember he might end up living under a flight-path - which bothers some people enormously, and not others. It's also worth deciding whether he wants to get into Central London easily, or get out of town. Traffic is heavy around here, and the river complicates movement too - even when there isn't an international at Twickenham!

True - most areas are lovely in the locality.

But depends what he wants really? is he after a house? 1 bed flat? Garden? etc?

I live in Isleworth which is awesome. But an equivalent to my flat in St Margarets (1 mile away) would cost an extra £25k.

Move 1/3 of mile towards Richmond add on another 50k easily. But as You say great place to live and work.

cheers guys, thanks for the info. sounds promising, what are the generally cheapest areas for houses? at the moment hes in a 3 bed semi so would probably look for the same

Most housing especially 3 bed semi's are expensive. Richmond/St Margarets/Whitton/Twickenham are out of the £250000 range and even Hounslow/Brentford/Feltham you would be lucky to get anything.The chronicle and Informer would be good papers to send to You friend to give Him an idea of the cost of housing locally, HTH

are there any surrounding areas, about a 15-20 minute drive radius that are decent places but a bit cheaper? as you can probably tell, myself or my mate or not too clued up on the geography of london!!!

Best way to do this is book into a B&B for a couple of days, grab a copy of Loot along with all the details from estate agents and do the footslog.

Keep away from the Walton on Thames, Weybridge area where I live it is daylight robbery for a house in the area

Cliff Richard lives in Weybridge. If you can call it living...