How the score is built
Up to five comparable indicators for each neighbourhood (MSOA) in England & Wales — 7,264 areas. Each is a 0–100 score where 50 marks the typical area: we clip the extremes (2nd/98th percentile) and stretch the rest so the middle of the country sits at 50 and real magnitude is kept. EPC and flood use fixed, absolute anchors. Data vintage: 2026-07-23.
Coverage: The service currently covers England & Wales. Scotland and Northern Ireland are outside this completed reference implementation; no geographic expansion is planned. Enter a Scottish or NI postcode and we’ll say it is outside coverage rather than guess.
Local-authority average rent (overall and per-bedroom) and MSOA median sale-price context, relative to other areas.
Monthly recorded-crime rate per 1,000 residents using the compatible mid-2024 MSOA population denominator. A rate and a caveat — never a safe/unsafe label. Police.uk publishes anonymised locations snapped to a fixed grid of map points rather than where a crime happened, and states that geocoding accuracy across forces ranges from 60% to 97%, so this rate carries locational error we cannot correct.
Median EPC rating: a proxy for running costs and comfort.
England-only flood-zone context. Wales is explicitly not covered and receives no flood score. This is not a property-level survey.
Walkable amenity count and distance to the nearest station, supermarket, GP, school and greenspace.
The overall score
The overall score is a weighted geometric mean of the five indicators — equal weights by default, or whatever priorities you set on the search page. A geometric mean (rather than a plain average) means one excellent indicator can’t paper over a poor one — a place that’s great on energy but unaffordable and flood-prone won’t float to the top. Missing an indicator? We drop it rather than scoring it zero: missing data lowers evidence quality, it never silently penalises an area.
- Label an area “safe”, “unsafe”, “good” or “bad”.
- Colour scores red-to-green as good/bad — bars stay on a neutral scale.
- Score missing data as zero — a gap lowers evidence quality instead.
- Value an individual property — this is area-level guidance only.
Data sources
- HM Land Registry Price Paid
- Sale prices and market context (England & Wales).
- ONS Private Rent & House Price
- Official rent levels, including per-bedroom (PIPR).
- ONS / geography lookup
- Postcode → LSOA / MSOA / local authority / region.
- ONS MSOA population estimates
- Compatible mid-2024 population denominator for the monthly crime rate.
- EPC (GOV.UK)
- Energy efficiency ratings aggregated to area level.
- Police.uk API
- Crime indicator profile by area and month.
- Planning Data API
- Planning constraints and context.
- Environment Agency
- England flood-risk-zone geometry distributed through the Planning Data Platform.
- OpenStreetMap / Overpass
- Amenities, stations, shops, green space.
Sources are official/open and used under their respective licences. Some figures are provisional and subject to revision by the publisher.