Curious Pax,
I live not to faraway from yourself. This time last year I was looking to do my PPL and looked at most of the alternatives. In most cases (appart from the states), the likely cost was to be around £5K or £6K. I had also decided, having had a trial lesson at MSF (manchester Int) that I did'nt want to be paying for waiting around on the taxiways for commercial traffic every lesson, but I did want to fly from a decent tarmach strip.
Getting to the point, it may be worth a look at Welshpool Flying School. Now before you poo-poo the idea, yes it is a good hours drive away, but if you can get a few days off at a time, there is decent accomodation for £8 per night, where you can study with the other students and go for a pint in the local.
Personally, I found the school perfect, and I spent 6 consecutive weeks there. I would have been done in five, but the weather turned bad in the last couple of weeks. The students tend to end up in a small groups, all studying together and helping each other out.
The Area is fantastic for training with a huge area of unrestricted airspace and the scenery stunning (though lots of sheep)! The school has a large fleet of PA-38 Tomahawks, a PA-28 Warrior and a F22. The tomahawks are purpose built trainers which to be fair, most people dont like because they can be a handfull, but hay, if you can master these, a PA-28 is childsplay!
I had a great time, made lots of new friends, passed all my exams first time, and came away with my PPL after 50 hrs, at a very reasonable cost of £3500.00 all in! can't say fairer than that. I still fly from there on a regular basis. Have a look
www.poolaviation.co.uk
I am now looking forward to my integrated ATPL in Jerez. Here we go again
Best of luck.
(e-mail me if you want more info)