Is Southwark, Surrey a nice place to live?

Is Southwark a nice place to live or is Southwark a bit rough? For us there are a number of factors that make any town a nice place to live, like a low crime rate, low levels of deprivation, the good health of the residents, rent affordability and excellent wages. In this article we will see if Southwark meets our criteria.

How likely are you to a victim of crime in Southwark?

The English Indices of Deprivation has a crime element for Southwark. They are a measure of how likely you are to be a victim of personal or material crime in an area, such as muggings or burglary. Naturally rural areas have less crime than urban areas, but for this part of our town assessment we've looked at the 10 wards nearest to the centre of Southwark. To pass this section, 8 out of 10 of these wards need to be above the English national average rank of 16422.5

#	Ward	Crime Rank
1	Champion Hill	17043
2	Goose Green	13697
3	London Bridge & West Bermondsey	11898
4	Peckham	8645
5	St Giles	8247
6	Nunhead & Queen's Road	7313
7	Old Kent Road	7142
8	Camberwell Green	6639
9	Rye Lane	5648
10	Faraday	5023

Is Southwark a healthy place to live?

If you are thinking of moving to Southwark, you want to know if the place is likely to put you on a downward spiral of ill health. For this section of the town assessment, we've examined government health statistics from the 2021 Census General Health question and the Indices of Multiple Deprivation's health element.The table below shows what percentage of Southwark residents answered saying their health was either bad or very bad. To pass this section, the local authority has to have a percentage score less than or equal to 7%.

Local Authority	%
City of London	2.72
Southwark (Southwark)	4.12
Tower Hamlets	4.86
Westminster	5.09

The English Indices of Deprivation also has health statistics for Southwark. They measures the risk of premature death and the impairment of quality of life through poor physical or mental health, lovely! We've collated an average LSOA rank for 10 wards nearest to the centre of Southwark. To pass this section, 8 out of 10 of these wards need to be above the English national average rank of 16422.5.

#	Ward	Health Rank
1	Champion Hill (Best)	19494
2	Goose Green	17841
3	Old Kent Road	14583
4	Rye Lane	14535
5	St Giles	14311
6	Camberwell Green	13701
7	Faraday	12765
8	London Bridge & West Bermondsey	12298
9	Peckham	11908
10	Nunhead & Queen's Road (Worst)	10165

Is Southwark rough?

Using the English Indices of Deprivation statistics, we've collated the average rank for 10 wards in and around Southwark. In layman's terms, this is how rough the ward is based on mutiple measures of deprivation including; employment, income, health, crime, housing and outside space. To pass this section as the town assessment, 8 out of 10 wards must have a ranking higher than the English average of 16422.5

#	Ward	Deprivation Rank
1	Goose Green	17866
2	Champion Hill	16317
3	London Bridge & West Bermondsey	12062
4	Rye Lane	11174
5	St Giles	9540
6	Camberwell Green	8211
7	Old Kent Road	7504
8	Nunhead & Queen's Road	7426
9	Faraday	6733
10	Peckham	6270

How affordable are the rents in Southwark?

Every six months the Office for National statitics publishes a snapshot of rental costs. These market rental statistics are dated September 2023. We have used the median rental figure for this assessment as we believe this is a more realistic figure than the average (mean) that can be skewed by artificially low and high rents. To pass this section, Southwark rents for each size property have to be less than 5% more than the median rent for Inner London.

Beds	Southwark	Inner London
1	£1300	£1370
2	£1630	£1700
3	£2100	£2150
4	£2900	£3033

How much can I earn in Southwark per week?

If you are thinking of moving to Southwark, you'll want to know how much you can earn in a job in the town. Every year the government publishes statistics on gross weekly pay, these figures are for September 2023. To pass this section Southwark's local authority needs to be in first or second place compared to the three nearest local authorities.

#	Local Authority	Median Pw
1	Westminster	£880.40
2	Tower Hamlets	£852.20
3	Southwark (Southwark)	£799.20
4	City of London	£0.00

So, is Southwark a nice place to live?

* Probably.