The great house hunt has begun

In the near future we are planning to move out of London, to somewhere that is inbetween Alice's work and London. This is basically because it is impractical for Alice to commute to Horsham from where we live now (poor girl, it is doing her in) and Alice's work have a great relocation package.

To take advantage of that this weekend we spent a great time just checking out the areas that are within the relocation zone and close to a railway station on one of the two lines. The area is based arouns the North downs and is really beautiful, especially with all the trees dressed up in their autumn colours (in December!). The ideal place we are looking for is:
1) Close to the station.
2) Close to greenery.
3) Close to some life.
4) Affordable.
Not sure if all those criteria will be met but there are some promising places especially Redhill (and suburbs), Epsom (my favourite at the moment), Leatherhead and Dorking. The most suprising place was Horley, which is very close to Gatwick but seems to be a very pleasent place. The place to avoid is Salfords which managed to define a new level of lifelessness.