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Real Estate News Releases
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(EMAILWIRE.COM, March 31, 2009 ) UK - New research has found that the swanky London borough of Kensington & Chelsea is the safest place to live in England and Wales, with the risk of criminal damage, burglary and flooding said to be by far the lowest. At the other end of the spectrum was Doncaster, which was found to have the riskiest housesÂ…
The irony of writing this story has not escaped me – considering someone was attacked right outside my house last week in the supposed ‘safest place to live in the UK.’
Still, new research from Virgin Money Home Insurance has found the London borough, home to some of the UK’s richest people and a handful of the priciest properties in the UK, has the ‘safest houses’ in England and Wales.
Kensington and Chelsea beat the less glamorous Dudley in the West Midlands and Poole in Dorset, which took second and third places respectively.
In order to compile the research, experts rated the major towns and cities in England and Wales to find the safest homes as ranked by risks of criminal damage, burglary and flooding and levels of protection from Neighbourhood Watch schemes, as well as numbers of police officers.
Cities and towns were then allocated points which were weighted to reflect population. The degree of risk with London boroughs were also rated separately.
Kensington and Chelsea came out top because it performed well across all criteria but scored particularly highly on low levels of criminal damage and faces a very limited flood risk, although burglary numbers are relatively high.
Brighton, Wandsworth and Westminster were all also in the top ten of safest places to live.
Property owners in Doncaster were found to have the riskiest houses ahead of near neighbours in Sheffield and Nottingham as they suffer from higher risks of criminal damage and burglary while also facing increased flood risk.
Grant Bather, Spokesman at Virgin Money, said, “It really is a case of safe as houses in Kensington and Chelsea as well as Poole and Dudley.
“The criteria we have used helped to provide a guide as to how safe houses rather than people are.
“That doesn’t of course mean that Doncaster or Nottingham or Sheffield are unsafe or dangerous but it does help show that there are higher risks in those areas when it comes to a range of issues. There is no need to have nightmares.
“Householders can take action to improve the safety of their houses with simple steps such as improving locks and installing burglar alarms as well as getting home insurance for peace of mind.
“In the current economic downturn it makes sense to save money by shopping around for insurance but not by cutting the quality of insurance,” added Mr Bather.
Nottingham and Manchester had the highest proportion of burglaries while Poole and Swindon had the lowest proportion of burglaries.
For more information on UK properties and the market in general, please visit http://www.themovechannel.co.uk/
-ENDS-
Notes to editors:
TheMoveChannel.com is a property website that was founded in 1999 as an online resource for buying, selling and learning about property. It now receives as many as 300,000 visits per month and advertises over 50,000 properties in nearly 90 countries, which are listed by over 500 partner organisations.
For further information as well as images and interview possibilities, please contact:
Dan Johnson
Managing Director
www.themovechannel.co.uk
0207 952 7650
TheMoveChannel.com
Dan Johnson
020 7952 7650
dj@themovechannel.com 
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