gcolyer - yep - swap "or" for "and" - I was on a roll and got carried away - I've just looked that up myself last week too as I'm coming up to the 2 years. Doh! Anyway - page 242/3 Section F1.4 in Lasors.
(and edited again for posterity!).
1mag1n3 - up to you really. If you're going integrated you'll need another 50-60k so hey ho, in for a penny, in for a pound!
If you're going the modular route then it may be better to wait until you can *really* afford to do it.
But it's *your* choice - you'll find propenents and detractors for any different scenario here - ultimately, it's up to you.
One thing which may be a point to note, and not something you don't think about when you're pre-ppl stage is currency. Once you've got your hard earned licence, you need to keep current. If you're wanting to take mates/family up, then you need 3 take offs and landings in the preceeding 90 days - and doing 3 circuits once every three months isn't a great plan skill level wise when you end up flying 4 up on a hot day with a tricky crosswind you thought would be fine.
With the UK Weather - keeping current is a constant challenge at the moment.
Worse still, unless you're going to buy into a share (but at your age it's possibly out of your reach), most clubs will have currency limits much lower than the 90 days - more like 30.
The upshot is, you spend your entire flying budget constantly flying with instructors (there's no guarentee they'll let you log it as P1 either), always getting re-checked out on an aircraft. Not really how you probably want to spend your time flying.
It's been mooted before on the Wannabes forum that rather than fly 5-10 hours a year, constantly with instructors, getting throughly jaded, it may be better to save a pile of cash and either go directly into integrated or start the modular route in earnest once you're clear of school/Uni/working/got the huge bank loan/got onto a scholarship scheme.
And there are usually flying oppertunities through both school and Uni with RAF air cadets/gliding clubs etc which can help.
Your decision - unless you can organise the cash (parents or bank etc) be prepared to keep paying to sit next to an instructor a handful of times a year over the next few years.
And always remember that if you (through no fault of your own), spend £60k on the modular route, then have a medical reason which means you can't get a Class 1 medical - you are *going* to have to have a back up plan.
Nothing to stop you doing 5-10 hours a year over the next 3-4 years though - you'll probably end up doing that with the instructor anyway so you don't technically *need* the licence until later unless you're going to be able to afford to fly regularly and can fit it in with studies/work and the weather.
it's your decision - there's far to many ways to do it for anyone to have an authoratitive answer on it.
Just make sure you enjoy it - I've known people who were totally mad for the whole heavy metal career, did 5-6 hours in a cessna puking their guts up and never want to fly in anything again (or worse still, they just couldn't do it - there is a bit of aptitude required after all).