I agree with Slo, friend's got a auto civic, a very pleasant drive indeed. I would strongly advise you stay away from stuff like BMW's or mercs.

please come back to us and let us know what you've seen/bought.

Thanks for advice.

I am struggling to find much, is this a 'bad' time to be looking as the new reg plates are upcoming?

Regards the cars you mention - if I find something that is an older car, less mileage (.e.g 2006, 40,000) or a newer car more mileage (e.g. 2013, 80,000)?

As regards the Mazda3:

Buying a higher mileage newer car is no problem if it has a FSH and usese decent parts/consumables in line with the manufacturers requirements. a 5-6 yo car with 80k miles is only about 13-16k miles pa. If that was on motorways, then there won't be much wear and tear. Often low mileage examples used to urban driving at low speed from cold can lead to problems down the road.

My 13yo Mazda3 1.6 petrol saloon (owned from new, not may saloons about) only has 65k miles - less usage (donesn't do the brakes much good sitting around), but when I do use it, it's on fast flowing roads for a decent distance, so it fully warms up. If I was getting a new one to replace mine, the car would've been one on your possibles. To be fair, most people prefer the hatch despite the saloon being the looker of the two, because it has a big boot opening (but a smaller boot).

Far more hatchbacks about - if I were you, I'd go for a late 1.6 petrol gen-2 or early 2.0 petrol gen-3 car as you'll find they will have no rust issues (not all gen-1 cars have them but the early ones [mid 2005 and earlier] do to a reasonable degree) - none reported on the gen-2 or 3 cars in the UK.