England's best and worst places to live revealed in suburban league table

A Daily Mail analysis of almost 7,000 neighbourhoods across England has named Withdean Woods in Brighton as the best place to live, scoring 85.2 out of 100 across eight metrics. The study assessed 6,856 MSOAs — middle-layer super output areas that house roughly 10,000 residents each — and considered house price movements since 2019, crime rates, income after housing costs, deprivation, internet speeds meeting a 10 Mbps minimum, access to green spaces, air quality, and how many homes sit within a 15-minute walk of a railway station. At the opposite end of the table, Lincoln Green and St James in Leeds were ranked last, with a combined score of 7.7 out of 100. The analysis leverages a composite score built from these eight factors to compare neighbourhoods across England.

The study notes that Withdean Woods sits inside a broader southeast cluster of desirable areas described as a “wedge” that spans parts of Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Hampshire, Surrey and Sussex. Brighton as a city is described as affluent and well connected to London, factors the analysis says contribute to a self-reinforcing reputation as a desirable location. Lucian Cook, head of residential research at Savills, told the Daily Mail that such areas attract affluent residents because of fundamentals like connectivity and amenities, creating a virtuous circle that pushes values higher. The analysis adds that crime in these wedge neighborhoods tends to be lower than the national average, though pockets of crime exist in parts of Reading, Portsmouth, Brighton and near Gatwick Airport.

Across the eight metrics, crime is typically below 40 reports per 1,000 people in the wedge, placing most of these suburbs in the country’s safer tier for the year ending July. Outside the wedge, crime tends to be higher in major urban centers such as London, Birmingham, central Liverpool and Leeds. On housing, the top-line result is not mirrored by uniform price growth: while the wedge ranks highly overall, house prices there rose by roughly 10% over six years, a gain that lags inflation and means many homes in the region have eroded in real value. In contrast, northern areas reported the sharpest price increases, with Old Trafford in Manchester showing a 162% rise—from £114,000 in 2019 to around £300,000 in July of the current year, based on Land Registry figures. The Daily Mail’s analysis also finds that average prices have fallen by at least 10% in nearly 140 suburbs across England and Wales since before the Covid-19 pandemic.

Income levels within the wedge are generally higher than the national average, with most MSOAs posting disposable income after housing costs of more than £35,000 a year. Central London’s Kensington is among the highest, with disposible incomes exceeding £60,000 annually. Elsewhere, pockets of the country with strong incomes include the Cotswolds, Bristol and parts of Cheshire, according to Office for National Statistics data from 2020—the most recently available at the time of the study. By contrast, eastern England contains some of the country’s lower-income areas, including a belt along the coast from Norfolk to Newcastle upon Tyne. The lowest reported levels of income after housing costs in the country are in Bradford’s Shearbridge & University area and in Leicester’s St Matthews & Highfields North, where disposable income sits around £14,400 a year.

The wedge also tends to register relatively low deprivation, with most MSOAs within the area falling in the top 10% of the least deprived neighborhoods nationally according to 2021 Census data. Yet deprivation remains a concern for pockets such as Sparkbrook North in Birmingham, which the analysis identifies as the most deprived area in England, with as much as 79% of households facing deprivation. Birmingham itself features multiple neighborhoods that appear among England’s more deprived pockets, illustrating the uneven distribution of resources even within high-income regions.

Rail connectivity presents a mixed picture: nationwide, very few MSOAs sit within a 15-minute walk of a train station, a finding the study ties to inner-city locations that have better rail proximity but where housing stock may not always be adjacent to stations. The wedge benefits from strong motorway access in the region, including links via the M3, M4, M25, M23 and M27, even as rail proximity remains uneven and not a defining advantage for most of the wedge’s MSOAs.

Access to green space is a noted strength for many wedge areas. The South Downs, the Chilterns and the Cotswolds lie within easy reach of the region, and in London, green space is even more abundant. Windsor Town and Eton are cited as having exceptional access, exceeding 7,000 acres nearby. Meanwhile, some outlying wedge areas such as Featherstone West, Coven and Shareshill in Staffordshire have comparatively limited green space, with just 32 square meters per person within 1 kilometer of home.

Broadband connectivity generally meets basic speeds across most of the wedge, based on Ofcom data analyzed in 2024 by the House of Commons Library. In three-quarters of all neighbourhoods nationwide, fewer than 5% of residents fall below the universal service obligation of 10 Mbps downloads. The best-connected spot identified is Didcot South East in South Oxfordshire, which has attracted tech-sector activity including a planned £1.9 billion data-centre campus at the old Didcot A coal power station site. The weakest connectivity is concentrated in Cathedral and Kelham in Sheffield City Centre.

Air quality, meanwhile, remains a regional mix. The Lake District topped the rankings for clean air, with PM2.5 levels around 4 micrograms per cubic meter, according to 2023 data cited by the study from Institute for Fiscal Studies and Environment Agency sources. London continues to register higher exposure, near double the safe level of 10 micrograms per cubic meter in city-center areas. The southeast wedge generally reports better air quality, with PM2.5 readings typically in the five-to-six range per day.

Methodology notes indicate the Daily Mail gathered statistics at the MSOA level across eight metrics, then normalised each metric with a percentile ranking (100 for best, 0 for worst) before averaging the eight rankings to produce an overall score. The result is a comparative portrait of how England’s neighborhoods perform across a range of living conditions, rather than a simple measure of one factor such as price or crime alone.

The analysis is framed as a snapshot of relative performance across thousands of small-area divisions, rather than a judgment about any single city or town. It highlights how a combination of connectivity, housing, and amenities can shape perceived desirability, and how affordability and deprivation persist in pockets even within comparatively prosperous regions. While the wedge’s overall performance signals relative strength in several metrics, the data also reveals notable disparities that policymakers and residents alike may want to consider when planning housing, transport and social programs.