Private eye care for Royal Leamington Spa

If you’re driving, the M40 is the answer

Join the M40 at Junction 13 or 14, depending which side of town you start from, and head north to Junction 15. Pick up the M42 southbound, then leave at Junction 1 for the A38 into Edgbaston — the Hagley Road is the usual alternative for the final stretch and is often the slower of the two at peak times. Allow around forty-five minutes outside rush hour. There is no real reason to choose a different route.

If you’re not driving, the train genuinely works here

Leamington Spa station has a half-hourly Chiltern service straight through to Birmingham Moor Street, calling at Warwick on the way, in around thirty-five minutes with no change — the best public transport option of any town in this catchment. The one thing to arrange is the last mile: Moor Street sits on the far side of the city centre from George Road, not the direct Five Ways stop some of Ms Jiang’s Birmingham-suburb patients get. Take a taxi from the station rank rather than trying to walk it or find a connecting bus — it is a short, ordinary fare, not a complication.

The drops affect the way home, whichever way you came

You will have dilating drops at the first appointment, and that rules out driving yourself home afterwards, whether you drove in or took the train. If you drove, arrange for someone else to collect you or bring you home rather than waiting it out in Edgbaston. If you came by train, book the return taxi from George Road to Moor Street in advance too — easy enough to arrange on the day going in, less easy to organise for yourself once your vision has blurred.

Villages to the east and north

Cubbington and Offchurch both feed into Leamington from the east and join the M40 at Junction 13 without needing to cross the town centre. Radford Semele is closer still, on the same side. Lillington and Milverton are effectively part of Leamington now, a few minutes from the M40 slip road whichever route you take.